BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 


BOOKS  BY  GEORGE  D,  HERRON. 


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"  Dr.  Herron  thinks  and  speaks  as  one  who  is  under 
the  compulsion  of  heavenly  visions  and  voices.  He  is 
haunted  by  his  subject.  He  does  not  argue,  nor  specu- 
late, nor  balance  a  number  of  conflicting  theories,  nor 
guide  his  readers  to  a  mild  and  inconclusive  issue  of 
alternatives.  Like  a  true  pro,;het  of  Gud,  he  sees,  he 
declares,  he  warns,  he  denounces,  he  appeals."  —  Rev. 
Charles  A.  Berry,  D.D.,  Wolverhampton,  England. 


Between  Caesar  and  Jesus 


BY 

GEORGE    D.   HERRON 


A  course  of  eight  Monday-noon  lectures  given  in  Willard  Hall, 
Chicago,  for  the  Christian  Citizenship  League,  upon  the  subject  of 
the  relation  of  the  Christian  conscience  to  the  existing  social  system, 
beginning  October  2\  and  closing  December  12,  1S9S. 


EIGHTH    THOUSAND 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS    Y.  CROWELL   &    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1899, 
By  Thomas  Y.  Croyvell  &  Company. 


C.    J.    PETERS   &    SON,    TYPOGRAPHERS, 
BOSTON. 


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C       fHo  Colleagues  m  tljc  Jacultg  of  Eofoa  College, 

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"HI  TO   WHOSE   NOBLE   TOLERANCE   AND 

SELF-DENIAL 

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&  I    AM    GREATLY    INDEBTED. 

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For  the  body  is  not  one  member,  but  many.  .  .  .  And 
whether  one  member  suffer;  all  the  members  suffer  with  it ; 
or  one  member  be  honored,  all  the  members  rejoice  with  it. 

—  Paul. 


A    PREFACE    FROM    PLATO. 


"  And  can  there  be  any  greater  evil  than  discord  and  dis- 
traction and  plurality  where  unity  ought  to  reign?  or  any 
greater  good  than  the  bond  of  unity?" 

"  There  cannot." 

"  And  there  is  unity  where  there  is  community  of  pleasures 
and  pains  —  where  all  the  citizens  are  glad  or  sorry  on  the  same 
occasions?  " 

"  No  doubt." 

"  Yes;  and  where  there  is  no  common  but  only  private  feel- 
ing, that  disorganizes  a  state  —  when  you  have  one-half  of  the 
world  triumphing  and  the  other  sorrowing  at  the  same  events 
happening  to  the  city  and  the  citizens?  " 

"  Certainly." 

"  Such  differences  commonly  originate  in  a  disagreement 
about  the  terms  'mine'   and  'his'  ?" 

"  Exactly." 

"  And  is  not  that  the  best  ordered  state  in  which  the  greatest 
number  of  persons  apply  the  terms  '  mine  '  and  '  not  mine  '  in 
the  same  way  to  the  same  thing?  " 

"True,  very  true." 

"  Or  that  again  which  most  nearly  approaches  the  condition 
of  the  individual  —  as  in  the  body,  when  but  the  finger  is  hurt, 
the  whole  frame,  drawn  toward  the  soul  and  forming  one  realm 
under  the  ruling  power  therein,  feels  the  hurt  and  sympathizes 
all  together  with  the  part  afflicted,  and  then  we  say  that  the  man 
has  a  pain  in  his  finger;  or  again,  in  any  other  part,  when 
there  is  a  sensation  of  pain  or  pleasure  at  suffering,  or  allevia- 
tion of  suffering,  the  same  expression  is  used?  " 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "that  is  as  you  say;  and  I  agree  with 
you  that  in  the  best  ordered  state  there  is  the  nearest  approach 
to  this  common  feeling  which  you  describe." 

"Then  when  any  one  of  the  citizens  experiences  any  good 
or  evil,  the  whole  state  will  make  his  case  their  own,  and  either 
rejoice  or  sorrow  with  him?  " 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "that  will  be  true  in  a  well  ordered 
state." 


Being  then  desirous  to  know  who  I  was,  I  saw  a  mass  of 
matter  of  a  dull  gloomy  color  between  the  south  and  the  east, 
and  was  informed  that  this  mass  was  human  beings  in  as  great 
misery  as  they  could  be  and  live,  and  that  I  was  mixed  with 
them,  and  that  henceforth  I  might  not  consider  myself  as  a  dis- 
tinct or  separate  being.  —  John  Woolman. 


CONTENTS. 


PACE 

I.  The  Ethical  Tragedy  of  the  Economic  Prob- 
lem       x3 

II.  The  Social  Sacrifice  of  Conscience     ...     43 

III.  Public  Resources  and  Spiritual  Liberty.     .     73 

IV.  Christian  Doctrine  and  Private  Property,   105 
V.  The  Conflict  of   Christ  with    Civilization,  143 

VI.  The  Conflict  of  Christ  with  Christianity,  179 

VII.  Industrial  Facts  and  Social  Ideals    .     .     .213 

VIII.    The  Victory  of  Failure 249 


The  only  absolutely  and  unapproachably  heroic  element  in 
the  soldier's  work  seems  to  be  —  that  he  is  paid  little  for  it  — 
and  regularly:  while  you  traffickers,  and  exchangers,  and 
others  occupied  in  presumably  benevolent  business,  like  to  be 
paid  much  for  it  —  and  by  chance.  I  never  can  make  out  how 
it  is  that  a  knight-errant  does  not  expect  to  be  paid  for  his 
trouble,  but  a  peddler-errant  always  does;  —  that  people  are 
willing  to  take  hard  knocks  for  nothing,  but  never  to  sell 
ribands  cheap;  —  that  they  are  ready  to  go  on  fervent  crusades 
to  recover  the  tomb  of  a  buried  God,  never  on  any  travels  to 
fulfil  the  orders  of  a  living  God;  —  that  they  will  go  anywhere 
barefoot  to  preach  their  faith,  but  must  be  well  bribed  to  prac- 
tise it,  and  are  perfectly  ready  to  give  the  gospel  gratis,  but 
never  the  loaves  and  fishes.  —  Ruskin. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE   ETHICAL   TRAGEDY   OF   THE 
ECONOMIC   PROBLEM. 


Let  us  take  the  law  of  the  competitive  struggle  for  existence  — 
which  has  been  looked  upon  by  political  economists  (perhaps  with 
some  justice)  as  the  base  of  social  life.  It  is  often  pointed  out  that 
this  law  of  competition  rules  throughout  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms  as  well  as  through  the  region  of  human  society,  and  there- 
fore, it  is  said,  being  evidently  a  universal  law  of  nature,  it  is  use- 
less and  hopeless  to  expect  that  society  can  ever  be  founded  on  any 
other  basis.  Yet  I  say  that  granting  this  assumption  —  and  in  reality 
the  same  illusion  underlies  the  application  of  the  word  "  law  "  here 
as  we  saw  before  in  its  social  application  —  granting,  I  say  that  com- 
petition has  hitherto  been  the  universal  law,  the  last  word,  of  nature, 
still  if  only  one  man  should  stand  up  and  say,  "  It  shall  be  so  no 
more,"  if  he  should  say,  "  It  is  not  the  last  word  of  my  nature,  and 
my  acts  and  life  declare  that  it  is  not,"  then  that  so-called  law  would 
be  at  an  end.  He  being  a  part  of  nature  has  as  much  right  to 
speak  as  any  other  part ;  and  as  in  the  elementary  law  of  hydrostatics 
a  slender  column  of  water  can  balance  (being  at  the  same  height) 
against  an  ocean  —  so  his  will  (if  he  understand  it  aright)  can  balance 
all  that  can  be  arrayed  against  him.  If  only  one  man  —  with  regard 
to  social  matters  —  speaking  from  the  very  depth  of  his  heart  says, 
"This  shall  not  be:  behold  something  better;"  his  word  is  likely 
stronger  than  all  institutions,  all  traditions.  And  why  ?  Because  in 
the  deeps  of  his  individual  heart  he  touches  also  that  of  society,  of 
man.  Within  himself,  in  quiet,  he  has  beheld  the  secret,  he  has  seen 
a  fresh  crown  of  petals,  a  golden  circle  of  stamens,  folded  and  slum- 
bering in  the  bud.  Man  forms  society,  its  laws  and  institutions,  and 
man  can  reform  them.  Somewhere  within  yourself,  be  assured,  the 
secret  of  that  authority  lies.  —  Edward  Carpenter. 


Between  Caesar  and  Jesus. 


i. 


THE  ETHICAL  TRAGEDY  OF  THE 
ECONOMIC  PROBLEM. 

It  cannot  be  wondered  at  that  this  general  inquest  into  abuses 
should  arise  in  the  bosom  of  society,  when  one  considers  the  practi- 
cal impediments  that  stand  in  the  way  of  virtuous  young  men.  The 
young  man,  on  entering  life,  finds  the  way  to  lucrative  employments 
blocked  with  abuses.  The  ways  of  trade  are  grown  selfish  to  the 
borders  of  theft,  and  supple  to  the  borders  (if  not  beyond  the  borders) 
of  fraud.  —  Emerson. 

I  do  not  come  to  you,  in  this  lecture  course, 
as  one  bringing  any  private  revelation,  or  hav- 
ing special  information  to  give.  I  do  not  ex- 
pect to  answer  all  the  questions  I  shall  raise, 
or  to  solve  the  problem  I  shall  state.  I  am 
a  fellow-sufferer  with  you  in  the  wrongs  which 
have  intensified  and  grown  mightier  since  we 
first  began  to  discuss  the  social  question,  and 
a  fellow-seeker  with  you  of  the  truth  that  has 
power  to  set  us  free.  If  what  I  say  has  any 
13 


14  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

quickening  value,  which  is  all  I  hope  for  it, 
it  is  only  because  I  shall  articulate  what  is 
most  common  in  your  thought  and  feeling,  and 
most  potent  in  your  sympathy  and  faith.  My 
purpose  is  to  first  state  the  crisis  we  all  feel, 
and  I  shall  not  go  beyond  that  in  this  open- 
ing lecture  ;  in  subsequent  lectures,  I  will  try 
to  point  out  what  seems  to  me  the  position 
of  a  disciple  of  Christ  in  that  crisis. 

We  live  near  the  culmination  of  a  social 
system.  Over  the  chaos  and  strife  we  call 
civilization  there  broods  the  thought  of  love 
as  law,  changing  the  motives  that  make  and 
remake  the  world.  From  the  midst  of  our 
devouring  industrial  monsters  rises  the  crea- 
tive dream  of  equality  and  harmony.  And  this 
dream  has  already  become  a  full-born  working 
ideal,  growing  in  stature  and  in  favor  with 
men.  Unto  us  this  child  is  born,  and  upon 
its  shoulders  will  the  government  of  the  peo- 
ples be.  For  industry  is  about  to  be  carried 
over  from  the  individual  to  the  social  or  spirit- 
ual plane. 

So  far  as  industrial  organization  has  gone, 
man  has  been  treated  and  associated  as  a  crea- 
ture for  producing  things.  Upon  the  new  plane, 
the  production  of  things  will  be  treated  and 
organized  as  a  means  of  associating  men  for 


TRAGEDY  OF   THE  ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.      1 5 

their  spiritual  education  and  liberty.  The  ques- 
tion of  how  to  do  this,  or  whether  it  can  be 
done  at  all,  is  the  social  question,  of  which 
the  world  is  so  full,  and  the  pressure  and  pain 
of  which  no  conscience  escapes  or  any  longer 
denies. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  social  problem  is  a 
problem  of  how  to  so  organize  the  world  that 
all  men  may  be  equally  secure  in  the  material 
means  and  social  resources  needful  for  a  com- 
plete life.  The  hope  of  the  social  reformer  is 
to  open  wide  the  gates  of  opportunity,  so  that 
every  creature,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest, 
may  make  his  life  a  moral  adventure  and  a 
joy,  and  exhaust  his  possibilities  in  the  thing 
he  can  best  do.  All  that  is  good  in  civiliza- 
tion must  be  for  the  equal  use  of  all,  in  order 
that  each  man  may  make  his  life  most  worth 
while  to  the  common  life  and  to  himself  ;  and 
there  must  be  equal  freedom  for  each  to  choose 
the  work  that  will  best  fulfil  his  serving  ca- 
pacity and  individuality. 

Along  with  the  culmination  of  the  social 
system,  indeed  at  the  very  heart  of  it,  is  cul- 
minating a  new  kind  of  conscience.  The  re- 
sponsibility of  the  individual  for  the  whole 
human  life,  the  responsibility  of  the  whole  for 
each  individual,  is  its  distinct  mark  and  quality. 


1 6  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

The  individual  feels  himself  enslaved  and  op- 
pressed in  the  enslavement  and  oppression  of 
his  brethren ;  he  feels  himself  guilty  of  his 
brother's  blood  in  every  custom  or  necessity 
that  makes  for  poverty,  ignorance,  and  defence- 
less toil  ;  he  feels  himself  a  traitor  in  the 
prosperity  which  political  debauchery  builds  on 
the  prostrate  bodies  of  citizens,  a  destroyer  in 
the  luxury  that  feasts  on  the  flesh  of  boys  and 
girls,  of  women  and  men.  No  longer  is  it  pos- 
sible for  men  to  be  content  to  have,  while  their 
brothers  have  not.  The  physical  misery  of  the 
world's  disinherited  is  becoming  the  spiritual 
misery  of  the  world's  elect.  Superior  privi- 
leges of  any  sort  now  carry  with  them  the 
sense  of  shame.  The  disgrace  of  wealth,  the 
puerility  of  culture,  the  corruption  that  inheres 
in  the  possession  of  power,  are  making  them- 
selves widely  and  deeply  felt.  Few  are  so  lost 
as  to  escape  the  feeling  that  superiority  is  a 
thing  to  be  expiated  in  social  sacrifice.  "  Now 
at  last,"  says  Professor  Marshall,  "we  are  set- 
ting ourselves  seriously  to  inquire  whether 
there  should  be  any  so-called  lower  classes  at 
all :  that  is,  whether  there  need  be  large  num- 
bers of  people  doomed  from  their  birth  to 
hard  work  in  order  to  provide  for  others  the 
requisites  of  a  refined  and  cultured  life,  while 


TRAGEDY  OF   THE  ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.      I1/ 

they  themselves  are  prevented  by  their  poverty 
and  toil  from  having  any  share  or  part  in  that 
life."  Thus  the  might  and  right  of  the  social 
problem,  with  the  immensity  and  intricacy 
thereof,  are  matched  by  the  honesty  and  the 
searching  subtlety  of  the  new  conscience. 

In  the  light  of  the  social  awakening,  there 
has  come  to  men  the  vision  of  a  life  and  destiny 
which  belong  to  the  race  as  a  whole  ;  a  race  life 
and  destiny  in  which  all  individuals  are  to  share, 
yet  which  is  altogether  more  than  the  mere  sum 
of  individual  lives  and  destinies  ;  just  as  a  col- 
lege is  more  than  the  faculty,  students,  and  edu- 
cational machinery  that  happen  to  be  present 
in  any  given  year.  The  new  conscience  is 
teaching  the  individual  that  his  life  is  a  function 
of  this  race  life,  and  that  he  can  fulfil  his  indi- 
viduality only  through  fulfilling  this  function. 
"  A  man  passes  like  a  traveller  through  the 
world,"  says  one  of  Henryk  Sienckiewicz's  Po- 
lish knights  ;  "  and  should  not  be  concerned  for 
himself,  but  only  for  the  Commonwealth,  which 
is  and  must  be  without  end.     Amen  ! " 

This  conscience  is  the  precipitation  of  the 
idea  and  initiative  of  Jesus  ;  it  is  the  effectual 
working  of  the  leaven  which  he  put  into  man- 
kind eighteen  centuries  ago.  Slowly  it  has 
been  leavening  the  Greek  world  of  mind  and 


1 8  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

beauty  ;  slowly  the  Roman  world  of  law  and 
power ;  slowly  the  Teutonic  world  of  individ- 
uality and  organization.  Out  of  the  whole 
slowly  issues  the  universal  democracy,  which  is 
to  sacredly  unfold  every  individuality,  and  rev- 
erently receive  its  contribution,  from  the  dog 
and  the  ape  to  the  poet  and  the  statesman,  the 
artist  and  the  saint.  "  A  new  mankind,"  says 
Henry  D.  Lloyd,  "has  been  conceived  and  will 
be  born  —  a  winged  beauty  out  of  the  earth- 
measuring  worm  —  which  will  not  know  force, 
and  fraud,  and  hatred,  and  will  let  love,  their 
natural  tie,  bind  men  and  nations  together." 

When  I  call  the  new  conscience  Christian,  I 
do  not  use  the  word  in  any  professional  or  piet- 
istic  sense.  I  do  not  mean  that  any  particular 
form  of  religion  need  be  accepted.  The  social 
awakening  does  not  come  in  the  names  or  terms 
of  Christianity.  It  comes  without  observation, 
almost  as  a  new  religion  springing  up  from  the 
human  soil.  Its  most  manifest  activities  and 
evolutions  are  unconscious  of  their  relation  to 
him  we  call  Christ.  The  truest  faith  of  to-day 
rejects  much  that  is  preached  and  professed  as 
Christianity.  Many  things  done  in  his  name 
are  the  things  which  Jesus  stood  against ;  and 
the  things  he  stood  for  are  done  by  many  who 
call   themselves   materialist  or  agnostic.     The 


TRAGEDY  OP   THE  ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.      1 9 

atheist  or  profligate  with  human  sympathies 
and  social  ideals  may  be  elementally  Christian  ; 
while  the  professional  Christian  of  faultless 
morality,  conserving  only  his  material  and  reli- 
gious interests  in  the  existing  order  of  things, 
may  be  in  fact  solidly  atheistic.  We  speak  of 
our  free-school  system  as  secular  ;  but  it  is 
probably  our  most  concrete  social  expression  of 
Jesus'  idea.  By  the  term  Christian  I  mean  that 
quality  of  conscience  and  sympathy  which  suf- 
fers not  a  man  to  rest  short  of  some  altar,  how- 
ever rude,  on  which  he  offers  his  life  for  the 
common  service,  the  social  good.  He  refuses 
to  drink  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine  until  he  can 
drink  it  in  fellowship  with  all  his  brethren  in 
the  full  come  kingdom  of  God.  Therefore  doth 
the  Father  love  him,  because  he  lays  down  his 
life  for  the  sheep. 

Now,  that  which  makes  the  ethical  tragedy 
of  the  present  moment  is  the  chasm  between 
the  existing  civilization  and  the  new  con- 
science. The  social  crisis  discloses  conscience 
and  civilization  becoming  separate  entities. 
Civilization  no  longer  represents  the  con- 
science of  the  individuals  who  must  find 
therein  their  work.  The  facts  and  forces 
•  which  now  organize  industry  and  so-called  jus- 
tice,   violate    the    best    instincts    of    mankind. 


20  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

Civilization  affords  no  industrial  machinery  by 
which  the  Christ-spirit  can  express  itself  in 
things.  This  best  force  in  society  is  helpless 
to  effectuate  itself  in  facts.  The  highest  moral 
reason  of  the  world  has  as  yet  found  no  way 
to  enforce  its  dictates.  The  best  faith  of  the 
world  offers  no  method  by  which  the  individual 
can  obey  its  principles.  Without  regard  to 
his  conscience,  the  economic  system  involves 
a  man  in  the  guilt  of  the  moral  and  physical 
death  of  his  brothers :  their  blood  cries  to 
him  from  the  adulterated  and  monopolized 
foods  he  eats ;  from  the  sweat-shop  clothes 
he  wears  ;  from  his  educational  advantages, 
his  special  privileges,  his  social  opportunities. 
"  In  a  thousand  ways,  great  and  small,"  this 
economic  system  is  "the  monstrous  evil  that 
beleaguers  society  to-day  ; "  it  wounds  us 
"with  poisoned  darts,  and  takes  away  our  lib- 
erty, and  fills  the  air  with  panic,  so  that  the 
straightest  and  most  fearless  souls  are  ham- 
pered, and  scarcely  dare  walk  in  the  light  of 
the  sun,  under  the  open  sky."  In  fine,  civil- 
ization denies  to  man  that  highest  of  all 
rights  —  the  right  to  live  a  guiltless  life,  the 
right  to  do  right. 

For   instance,    I    cannot    come    from     Iowa 
College  to  this  city,  to  speak  to  you  of  Chicago 


TRAGEDY  OF   THE   ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.     21 

against  the  existing  order  of  things,  without 
riding  upon  a  railway  system,  the  capitaliza- 
tion of  which  is  largely  watered  stock.  Now, 
watered  stock  is  a  method  of  high  treason  by 
which  corporations  forcibly  tax  the  nation  for 
private  profit,  and  by  which  they  annually 
extort  millions  from  American  toilers  and  pro- 
ducers. It  is  as  essentially  a  system  of 
violence,  spoil,  and  robbery  as  would  be  the 
overrunning  of  the  nation  by  Tartar  hordes, 
laying  hands  on  whatever  they  choose  to  take 
for  their  own.  Although  a  large  part  of  Amer- 
ican industry  is  organized  by  this  system  of 
watered  stocks,  and  we  consent  to  it  tamely 
and  ignorantly,  it  is  yet  the  worst  historic 
form  of  indirect  usurpation  and  tyranny  ;  and 
it  renders  our  national  wealth  in  large  part 
purely  fictitious.  Again,  this  railway  system 
practically  administers  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  in  all  things  that  concern  the 
system,  and  the  governments  of  the  several 
states  of  the  Union  as  well.  The  majority 
of  the  United  States  senators  recently  elected 
have  been  its  mere  appointees  and  lobbyists, 
and  agents  at  the  same  time  for  other  cor- 
porate properties.  It  took  a  shameless  mob 
of  railway  attorneys  to  elect  a  United  States 
senator  to  represent  the  people  of  the  state 
of  which  I  am  a  citizen. 


22  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

In  all  this  corrupt  exploitation  of  the  nation 
by  the  most  degrading  sort  of  economic  force, 
in  this  debauchery  of  every  citizen  of  my 
commonwealth,  I  am  obliged  to  participate, 
in  order  to  travel  anywhere  upon  the  national 
highways,  whether  I  go  upon  God's  errands 
or  go  in  quest  of  evil  to  do.  Yet  it  is  my 
divine  right  as  a  son  of  God,  and  as  a  free- 
born  citizen,  to  travel  national  highways  built 
by  the  social  service  and  political  purity  of  the 
people ;  by  good-will,  virtue,  and  the  common 
love.  The  only  possible  innocence  that  re- 
mains to  me,  while  I  pay  forced  tribute  to 
the  system,  while  I  profit  by  its  corrupting 
influences  and  agencies,  while  I  bear  my  part 
in  the  culpable  public  ignorance  and  guilty 
moral  apathy,  is  that  of  protest  and  exhaustless 
effort.  I  cannot  deliver  the  people  from  the 
system  by  choosing  to  ride  in  the  stage-coach 
with  Mr.  Ruskin,  or  by  deciding  to  walk  with 
Mr.  Thoreau. 

But  the  railway  system  is  not  all ;  indeed 
it  is  but  the  beginning.  If  I  put  sugar  in  my 
coffee,  I  support  a  trust  that  practically  admin- 
istered the  finances  of  the  United  States  for 
personal  profit ;  that  threw  the  national  gov- 
ernment into  the  hands  of  a  Wall-Street  re- 
ceiver, where  it  still  remains  ;  that  presented, 


TRAGEDY  OF  THE  ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.     23 

in  its  relation  to  the  United  States  Senate, 
one  of  the  most  awful  and  unconcealed  spec- 
tacles of  national  debauchery  in  political  his- 
tory. In  a  speech  made  in  the  American 
Senate,  Senator  John  Sherman  stated  that  this 
trust,  "upon  a  basis  of  $9,000,000  issued  $75,- 
000,000  of  stock,  and  $10,000,000  of  bonds,  and 
paid  upon  it,  watered  stock  and  all,  from  six 
to  twelve  per  cent  interest  every  year,  every 
dollar  of  which  was  at  the  cost  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States."  Again,  in  order  to 
send  my  children  to  the  public  school,  that 
holy  of  holies  in  the  temple  of  American  free- 
dom, I  must  buy  the  books  ordered  by  a  pri- 
vate corporation  that  has  forcibly  assumed  the 
function  of  administering  the  free-school  sys- 
tem of  the  United  States  as  private  property  ; 
that  employs  gangs  of  ruffians  to  go  up  and 
down  these  states  and  prepare  school  legisla- 
tion for  private  profit  ;  that  appoints  school 
superintendents,  intimidates  school  principals, 
throws  out  of  employment  and  blacklists  teach- 
ers who  dare  reject  its  publications.  I  can  no 
longer  clothe  myself,  whether  in  good  clothes 
or  cheap,  without  the  likelihood  that  my 
clothes  are  made  under  sweat-shop  condi- 
tions, in  which  men  and  women  and  children 
toil  together  in  hot-air  slave-pens,  fourteen  to 


24  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

eighteen  hours  a  day,  for  earnings  that  range 
from  two  to  five  dollars  a  week.  If  I  send 
my  students  to  pursue  further  study  upon 
subjects  to  which  I  have  introduced  them,  I 
must  send  them  to  receive  the  benefits  of 
endowments  from  the  hands  of  a  besotted  phi- 
lanthropy, drunken  and  sated  with  the  wine  of 
life  pressed  from  the  crushed  and  exhausted 
millions  who  feed  the  modern  industrial  wine- 
press. By  merely  preaching  the  ethics  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  in  their  pulpits,  I  have 
been  the  means  of  depriving  able  and  noble 
men  of  their  positions  and  livelihoods,  because 
of  their  economic  dependence  upon  the  few 
rich  men  who  control  the  organizations  of  their 
churches.  Whatever  I  do,  whichever  way  I 
turn,  I  can  neither  feed  nor  clothe  my  family, 
nor  take  part  in  public  affairs  as  a  citizen,  nor 
speak  the  truth  as  I  conceive  it,  without  being 
stained  with  the  blood  of  my  brothers  and  sis- 
ters; without  putting  my  hands  into  the  wicked- 
ness that  prostitutes  every  sacred  national  and 
religious  function.  It  matters  not  that  I  ask  of 
society  only  such  "keep"  as  will  enable  me  to 
serve  with  peace  of  mind,  and  to  the  exhaustion 
of  my  possibilities ;  society  denies  me  a  guilt- 
less "keep." 

The  economic  system  denies  the  right  of  the 


TRAGEDY  OF   THE  ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.     2$ 

sincerest  and  most  sympathetic  to  keep  their 
hands  out  of  the  blood  of  their  brothers.  We 
may  not  go  to  our  rest  at  night.,  or  waken  to 
our  work  in  the  morning,  without  bearing  the 
burden  of  the  communal  guilt;  without  being 
ourselves  creators  and  causes  of  the  wrongs  we 
seek  to  bear  away.  At  every  step,  when  we 
would  do  good,  evil  is  present  with  us,  and  ex- 
acts its  tribute  from  the  very  citadel  of  the  soul. 
If  we  stay  at  our  posts,  in  order  that  we  may 
change  the  system,  we  are  on  the  backs  of  our 
brothers ;  if  we  desert  our  posts,  in  order  that 
we  may  get  off  our  brothers'  backs,  we  take 
bread  from  their  mouths,  from  the  mouths  of 
their  children,  and  add  to  the  army  of  the 
workless  and  hopeless.  Upon  the  conscience 
which  enthrones  Christ,  civilization  forces  this 
dilemma :  seek  extrication  and  peace  for  your- 
self, at  the  risk  of  losing  your  soul  through  the 
supreme  selfishness  of  living  to  save  it ;  or  else 
remain  in  the  thick  of  the  wrong,  enduring  the 
ethical  strain,  the  tragedy  of  soul,  the  moral 
suffering  unspeakable,  in  order  that  you  may 
help  to  bear  the  wrong  away  from  the  necks 
and  souls  of  your  brothers.  And  millions  are 
denied  even  the  right  to  this  dilemma.  The 
hard  conditions  of  stupefying  toil  under  which 
the  vast  majority  of  human  beings  live,  even  in 


26  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

Christendom,  destroys  moral  desire,  or  denies 
opportunity  where  desire  exists,  and  converts 
man  into  a  mere  creature  of  profit,  a  beast  of 
work.  It  is  no  wonder  that  heaviness  and 
half-despair  seem  to  be  settling  upon  the  age, 
upon  its  most  aspiring  thought  and  urgent 
effort ;  and  that  books  about  degeneracy  and 
the  decadence  get  themselves  written. 

It  is  only  the  densest  ethical  ignorance  that 
talks  about  a  "Christian  business"  life;  for 
business  is  now  intrinsically  evil,  whatever  good 
may  come  out  of  it.  Whoever  says  that  a  man 
can  live  the  Christian  life,  while  at  the  same 
time  successfully  participating  in  the  present 
order  of  things,  is  either  profound  in  the  lack 
of  knowledge,  or  else  he  deliberately  lies. 
"  The  ways  of  trade,"  said  Mr.  Emerson,  years 
ago,  "have  grown  selfish  to  the  borders  of 
theft,  and  supple  to  the  borders  (if  not  beyond 
the  borders)  of  fraud."  "A  tender  and  intelli- 
gent conscience,"  he  declares  to  be  a  "  disquali- 
fication for  success."  "  The  young  man,"  he 
says,  "on  entering  life,  finds  the  way  to  lucra- 
tive employment  blocked  with  abuses."  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  an  ethical  bargain  ;  for  bar- 
gains are  matters  of  force,  fraud,  and  chance. 
There  are  no  honest  goods  to  buy  or  to  sell ; 
adulterated    foods,   shoddy  manufacture   of  all 


TRAGEDY  OF  THE  ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.     2*] 

that  we  wear,  the  underpaid  labor  and  con- 
sumed life  that  make  every  garment  a  texture 
of  falsehood,  the  hideous  competitive  war  that 
slays  its  millions  where  swords  and  cannons 
slay  their  tens,  all  unite  to  baffle  and  mock 
the  efforts  of  the  awakened  conscience  at  every 
turn,  and  make  the  industrial  system  seem  like 
the  triumph  of  hell  and  madness  on  the  earth. 
Only  by  a  sort  of  terrible  daily  denial  of  his 
spiritual  self,  a  crucifixion  of  the  principles 
by  which  he  longs  to  organize  his  life,  can  a 
man  wrest  a  stained  and  insecure  livelihood 
from  this  terrible  war  for  bread  which  we  call 
industry. 

Not  long  ago,  a  Christian  merchant  came 
to  me  in  great  anguish  of  spirit ;  he  had  tried, 
in  what  he  considered  a  meagre  way,  to  organ- 
ize his  business  in  a  Christian  fashion ;  he 
placed  himself  on  terms  of  economic  and  social 
equality  with  his  employees,  and  they  together 
tried  to  be  honest  servants  of  their  customers, 
with  no  competing  thought  in  their  mind ;  but 
the  result  was  the  bankruptcy  and  ruin  of  sev- 
eral competitors,  and  the  increase  of  sweat- 
shop conditions  in  the  goods  the  merchant 
purchased.  "  If  I  try  to  pay  my  miners  just 
wages,"  said  a  mining  operator  to  me,  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  last  national   coal-strike,  "  I 


28  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

will  ruin  them,  for  the  combination  will  crush 
me,  causing  my  contracts  to  be  forfeited,  and 
preventing  my  coal  from  being  shipped  ;  I  will 
be  bankrupted,  and  the  men  who  have  been 
with  me  for  fifteen  years  will  be  black-listed, 
wageless,  and  homeless."  "  What  shall  I  do  ?  " 
he  cried ;  "  I  care  not  for  a  moment  for  the 
loss  of  every  cent  of  my  property,  if  I  could 
only  find  some  way  to  do  right  without  wrong- 
ing others  ;  I  am  almost  mad  with  the  mental 
and  moral  strain."  These  two  men  are  not 
exceptions  ;  they  are  revelations  of  a  common 
tragedy  of  soul  which  the  denial  of  the  right  to 
do  right  is  regetting  among  men  of  economic 
power. 

There  is  nothing  in  nature  to  bring  about  this 
conflict  between  civilization  and  conscience ; 
nothing  that  need  have  prevented  material 
facts  from  being  the  perfect  expression  of  spir- 
itual forces.  The  persistent  assumption  that 
sheer  economic  might,  with  the  inequalities 
and  miseries  it  brings,  is  in  accord  with  natural 
law,  is  a  piece  of  academic  bluff,  a  wanton 
abuse  of  science.  All  progress  shows  nature 
to  be  the  friend  of  man  and  righteousness,  and 
the  enemy  of  force  and  fraud.  The  evils  that 
we  have  been  scientifically  charging  upon  na- 
ture are  due  to  the  imbecile  and  ruthless  self- 


TRAGEDY  OF   THE  ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.     29 

ishness  of  man.  As  Mazzini  has  pointed  out, 
our  inequalities  are  not  in  nature ;  they  are 
in  man's  wasteful  perversion  of  nature.  Our 
trouble  lies,  as  Henry  George  has  said,  in  that 
we  have  "given  into  the  exclusive  ownership 
of  the  few  the  provision  that  a  bountiful  Father 
has  made  for  all."  Nature  has  never  been 
lacking  in  providing  resources  and  food  for 
man ;  nature  over-produces  ;  nature  is  prolific 
and  prodigal  in  bestowment  and  opportunity. 
We  pray,  "  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread  ; " 
but  our  Father  answered  that  prayer  before 
the  foundation  of  the  world.  Even  in  the 
present  monstrous  organization  of  production, 
the  people  could  not  by  any  possibility  con- 
sume all  that  they  produce  in  any  given  year. 
And  the  possibilities  of  production  have 
scarcely  been  touched.  A  conservative  statis- 
tician estimates  that  the  state  of  Texas  alone, 
if  its  resources  were  all  organized  to  that  end, 
could  support  the  present  population  of  the 
world.  An  eminent  Austrian  economist  figures 
that  all  that  is  produced  in  the  Austrian  em- 
pire would  require  but  three  hours  a  day  labor 
from  each  toiler,  if  production  were  rationally 
organized,  and  each  man  to  toil ;  and  that  if 
the  production  of  Austria  were  equitably  dis- 
tributed, each  family  would  have  enough  for  an 


30  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

abundant  life.  "If,"  says  Mr.  George,  "men 
lack  bread,  it  is  not  that  God  has  not  done  his 
part  in  providing  it.  If  men  willing  to  labor 
are  cursed  with  poverty,  it  is  not  that  the  store- 
house that  God  owes  men  has  failed  ;  that  the 
daily  supply  he  has  promised  for  the  daily  want 
of  his  children  is  not  here  in  abundance."  It 
is  this  abundance  of  natural  resources  which 
leads  the  highest  commercial  genius  of  the  day 
to  exhaust  itself  in  organizing  industry  so  as  to 
limit  and  suppress  production.  We  speak  of 
great  monopolies  as  created  for  the  purpose  of 
facilitating  production.  They  are  in  reality 
organizations  to  forcibly  prevent  the  people 
from  producing  for  the  common  consumption  ; 
organizations  for  the  sole  purpose  of  compelling 
the  people  to  produce  for  the  profit  of  the  few, 
instead  of  for  the  consumption  of  all.  And  this 
congestion  of  economic  goods,  which  has  been 
the  historic  destroyer  of  nations  and  religions, 
we  are  in  habit  of  calling  prosperity  and  the 
increase  of  wealth.  This  forcible  appropriation 
of  the  resources  of  the  people,  and  of  the  prod- 
ucts of  their  toil,  we  are  taught  to  view  as  the 
development  of  industry  ;  while  people  starve 
in  a  world  of  abundance  because,  as  Edward 
Bellamy  says,  too  much  is  produced. 

On    every  hand,  we    may  see  what   desola- 


TRAGEDY  OF   THE   ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.     3 1 

tions  are  wrought  by  the  economic  wars  and 
conquests  of  our  lords  of  industry,  our  Napo- 
leons of  the  market.  In  the  early  part  of  1897, 
when  meetings  for  the  relief  of  the  famine  in 
India  were  being  held  in  English  and  Ameri- 
can cities,  when  contributions  were  received 
from  newsboys  and  washerwomen,  scores  of 
ships  laden  with  wheat,  and  carrying  millions 
of  money,  arrived  in  English  ports  as  rents 
from  the  people  in  India  for  the  privilege  of 
living  on  the  lands  which  the  English  had 
taken  from  them.  The  recent  forcible  control 
of  the  American  wheat-market,  which  enabled 
one  man  to  "hold  up"  the  earth,  by  precisely 
the  same  ethic  with  which  the  foot-pad  with 
the  sand-bag  holds  up  his  victim  in  the  dark 
alley,  occasioned  the  shooting  down  of  hun- 
dreds of  starving  workmen  in  Italian  cities, 
and  may  indirectly  cost  more  human  lives  than 
some  of  the  great  wars.  An  eminent  physi- 
cian recently  declared  to  me  his  belief  that 
the  control  of  the  anthracite  coal  output,  a 
few  winters  ago,  by  which  a  few  men  forcibly 
took  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  million  dollars 
from  the  American  people,  caused  more  deaths 
than  Napoleon's  retreat  from  Moscow.  The 
economic  advantage  which  our  Spanish  war 
has  given  to  the  controllers  of  the  market  will 


32  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

probably  result  in  the  loss  of  more  lives,  by 
economic  indirection,  than  there  are  people  in 
the  Island  of  Cuba ;  the  chivalry  and  patriot- 
ism of  the  people  furnish  opportunity  and  prey 
for  the  speculators.  "  Where  the  Spaniard  has 
slain  us  by  tens,"  says  Mr.  Lloyd,  "the  Ameri- 
can has  slain  his  own  by  hundreds,  by  army 
contracts  and  '  pulls '  for  incompetents  and 
politicians.  The  country  stands  pale  with  rage 
at  the  tragedy  of  the  fever,  the  hunger,  the 
nakedness,  the  delirium  visited  upon  those  who 
have  labored  for  it  on  the  fields  of  battle.  But 
capitalism,  business,  has  been  visiting  these 
horrors  year  in  and  year  out  on  those  who 
labor  on  all  the  other  fields  not  less  necessary 
to  our  safety  and  honor.  Camp  Wikoff  and 
the  other  camps  are  only  dress  rehearsals  of 
a  drama  of  greed  —  greed  for  money  and  greed 
for  office  and  titles  —  which  now  holds  the 
stage  in  every  department  of  our  government 
and  business  life."  While  I  write  this,  there 
is  destitution  and  suffering  in  the  city  of  New 
York  because  of  the  rise  in  the  price  of  food 
products ;  yet  a  great  manufacturer  who  is 
deeply  interested  in  intensive  agriculture,  as 
well  as  in  economic  problems,  tells  me  that 
he  estimates  that  the  entire  population  of  the 
city  could  be  abundantly  fed  on  what   might 


TRAGEDY  OF   THE   ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.      33 

be  produced  within  a  radius  of  twenty-five 
miles  of  the  city  limits. 

We  are  told  that  there  is  lack  of  work.  But 
there  is  no  lack  of  useful  and  beautiful  work 
to  be  done,  and  no  lack  of  eager  toilers  to 
whom  free  and  fruitful  labor  would  be  the  glad- 
ness of  life.  Millions  of  fields  are  waiting  for 
plough  and  seed,  and  for  water  from  the  hills, 
that  they  may  sing  to  the  ill-fed  and  over- 
worked millions  with  harvests  of  bread  and  joy. 
Millions  more  of  valley  and  hillside  acres  are 
ready  to  blossom  with  cotton  and  the  wool 
of  sheep,  that  they  may  clothe  the  millions  of 
ill-clad  children  and  their  miserable  mothers. 
Millions  of  ore  and  fuel,  in  the  hearts  of  moun- 
tains and  the  depths  of  earth,  promise  to  come 
forth  for  the  wealth  and  warmth  of  the  millions 
asking  to  fulfil  the  promise  by  the  labor  of 
their  hands.  Millions  of  homes  are  needed 
for  the  millions  who  die  in  the  moral  and  physi- 
cal wretchedness  of  tenements,  because  they 
must  buy  from  the  lords  of  rent  a  place  wherein 
to  lay  their  heads  on  the  earth  God  gave  them  ; 
and  millions  of  builders  are  waiting  to  clothe 
with  homes  of  love  and  beauty  an  earth  set 
free  from  owners  and  tribute-takers. 

Lack  of  work,  while  the  millions  are  starved 
and    dwarfed    and    blighted    for   want    of    the 


34  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

things  and  opportunities  that  make  life  whole 
and  sweet,  loving  and  lovely  and  worth 
while  ? 

Lack  of  work,  while  exhaustless  resources 
are  at  hand  out  of  which  to  make  the  things 
and  opportunities  the  millions  need,  with  mil- 
lions of  workers  praying  only  for  the  privi- 
lege of  making  them  ? 

Yes,  after  all,  amidst  these  boundless  re- 
sources for  countless  billions  of  the  children 
of  God,  offering  ten  thousand  times  ten  thou- 
sand kinds  of  noble  and  useful  and  happy 
things  to  do,  with  myriad  hearts  and  hands 
and  brains  asking  nothing  but  freedom  to  do 
them,  there  is  lack  of  work. 

But  wherefore  comes  this  lack  ?  Do  you 
not  see  ?  It  comes  from  the  lords  of  industry 
and  land,  who  have  shut  up  the  resources  which 
God  gave  to  all  people,  and  who  have  made 
laws  to  keep  what  they  took  by  force,  and  have 
made  judges  to  keep  their  laws,  so  that  the 
people  may  not  use  their  own,  nor  earn  their 
bread  and  rejoice,  nor  even  live  upon  the  earth 
the  Lord  God  gave  them,  except  they  toil  for 
the  gain  of  the  industrial  lords,  to  whom  they 
must  sell  their  labor-power  for  the  right  to 
exist  ;  whose  wage-slaves  they  must  become, 
or  else   stand   all  the   day  idle,  and   starve   in 


TRAGEDY  OF   THE   ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.     35 

the  market-place  at  night.  And  thus  it  is  that 
the  majority  of  human  beings  drag  out  impov- 
erished lives  of  unsupplied  physical  and  spirit- 
ual need  amidst  overflowing  abundance,  to  have 
even  their  need  destroyed  at  last  by  the  ever- 
lasting lack. 

Yet  the  majority  of  people  are  not  bad  at 
heart,  and  do  not  want  to  injure  each  other  in 
the  earning  of  their  daily  bread,  nor  gain  their 
opportunities  through  the  suffering  and  loss  of 
their  brothers.  Mankind  is  naturally  unselfish 
and  loving ;  yea,  the  sacrifice  of  self  for  the 
good  of  others  is  man's  deepest  natural  in- 
stinct. But  in  a  competitive  society,  with  its 
natural  monopoly  of  opportunity  and  power  by 
the  strong,  with  its  desolating  conquests  of 
sheer  economic  might,  a  complete  ethical  life 
is  impossible  to  the  weak  and  strong  alike. 
"Equitable  legislation  not  existing  in  a  city," 
said  Plato,  "  it  would  be  impossible  for  a  citi- 
zen to  be  good  or  happy."  If  civilization  is 
organized  industrial  war,  how  can  men  live  at 
economic  peace  with  one  another  ?  How  can 
we  effectually  obey  Christ's  law  of  love,  when 
every  industrial  maxim,  custom,  fact,  and  prin- 
ciple renders  that  law  inoperative  ?  If  we  have 
only  a  competitive  and  monopolistic  system  to 
live  in,  how  can  we  escape  being  competitors 


$6  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

and  monopolists  ?  Whither  shall  we  flee  from 
the  presence  of  this  evil  system  ?  If  we  group 
ourselves  in  colonies,  and  dig  our  living  from 
the  soil,  we  are  still  injuring  our  brothers  in 
moral  and  economic  competition,  and  are  guilty 
of  seeking  a  private  property  in  righteousness 
besides. 

It  is  thus  that  to  the  Christian  with  the 
ethics  of  Jesus,  to  the  American  with  his  politi- 
cal origins  and  traditions,  the  social  problem  is 
everywhere  becoming  a  problem  of  conscience ; 
a  problem  of  how  to  effect  an  economic  organi- 
zation that  shall  express  in  material  facts  the 
highest  spiritual  forces,  and  thus  liberate  the 
individual  soul  from  moral  bondage.  Only  in 
a  subjective  and  inadequate  sense,  and  that 
through  collision  and  suffering,  can  a  man  even 
try  to  follow  Christ  in  the  present  system. 
The  machinery  of  the  world  was  constructed 
by  the  strong  and  cunning  to  be  run  by  the 
motive  powers  of  force  and  self-interest.  Love 
and  Christian  conscience  have  as  yet  no  ma- 
chinery to  apply  the  love-motor  to ;  attempted 
applications  often  wreck  the  machines,  and 
human  beings  with  them.  There  must  be  a 
new  social  machinery,  in  order  that  love  and 
conscience  may  organize  the  world  for  the  com- 
mon good  of  all.     Except  the  system  of  things 


TRAGEDY  OF    THE   ECONOMIC  PROBLEM,     tf 

be  born  again,  the  individual  cannot  be  socially- 
saved. 

It  does  not  lie  in  the  nature  of  things  that 
righteousness  should  be  pursued  and  achieved 
only  through  tragedy.  If  man  has  a  destiny, 
and  if  Christ  and  history  reveal  the  presence  of 
God  in  the  life  of  man,  a  system  which  makes 
righteousness  a  conflict  with  civilization  cannot 
stand.  To  accept  a  civilization  so  organized  is 
to  reject  Christ  and  all  that  he  stood  for,  quite 
as  effectually  as  if  we  nailed  him  upon  a  wooden 
cross  before  the  enraged  city.  To  accept  Christ, 
his  idea  and  initiative,  is  to  reject  a  civilization 
whose  motives  and  methods,  whose  organized 
feast  and  forces,  render  the  Christian  life  un- 
livable. 

The  highest  right  of  every  man  is  the  right 
to  do  right ;  the  right  to  obey  an  enlightened 
conscience  ;  the  right  to  earn  his  living  in 
such  a  way  as  to  help  the  living  of  every 
other  man  ;  the  right  to  live  a  guiltless  life. 
The  right  to  do  right  includes  every  other 
right  under  the  heavens ;  it  has  been  God's 
hid  secret  at  the  heart  of  every  movement 
for  liberty  since  the  world  began.  The  right 
to  do  right  is  the  substance  of  the  economic 
problem  ;  it  is  a  problem  of  things  only  in 
the  sense  that   conscience   demands   the   right 

• 


38  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

to  organize  things  as  the  supports  of  spiritual 
freedom. 

We  glorify  our  fathers  who  crossed  the  seas 
that  they  might  find  freedom  to  worship  God 
according  to  the  dictates  of  conscience.  Theirs 
was  the  simple  and  easy  task.  The  Pilgrim 
Fathers  were  but  rudely  fumbling  the  alphabet 
of  the  chapter  now  to  be  written  in  the  book  of 
progress.  The  new  Pilgrim  conscience  is  out 
upon  an  infinitely  vaster  quest,  a  more  glorious 
adventure.  It  is  searching  the  sources  of  life 
for  foundations  upon  which  to  build  a  civiliza- 
tion in  which  conscience  may  find  freedom  to 
obey  as  well  as  worship ;  freedom  for  the  com- 
mon life  to  practise  what  the  wise  and  good  in 
all  centuries  have  preached  —  the  law  of  love. 
This  is  the  first  time  in  history  that  such  a  task 
has  been  seriously  undertaken  ;  and  it  is  the 
mightiest  task  to  which  conscience  ever  sum- 
moned mankind.  That  man  will  be  equal  to 
the  summons  we  need  not  doubt.  It  is  enough 
that  the  thought  of  love  as  law  has  been  born, 
and  that  the  ideal  of  society  governed  by  this 
law  is  upon  the  earth.  "The  only  thing  evil 
cannot  withstand,"  says  a  noble  Englishwoman, 
"  is  the  winged  ideal ;  it  cannot  even  fight  it  ; 
its  weapons  are  not  made  for  that  warfare." 

Potential  within  existing  conditions  is  a  reali- 


TRAGEDY   OF   THE  ECONOMIC  PROBLEM.      39 

zation  surpassing  our  noblest  ideals.  Our  social 
wrongs  carry  in  themselves  the  seeds  of  their 
own  regeneracy.  Our  economic  evils  are  vital 
with  the  elements  of  their  own  redemption. 
Our  monopolies  are  charged  with  the  forces 
that  will  yet  change  them  into  the  spiritual  or- 
gans of  a  ransomed  society ;  the  organs  of  a 
progress  without  strife  or  struggle.  The  failure 
of  self-interest  as  the  organizing  and  executive 
law  of  society  is  a  witness  to  the  better  law 
that  lies  indestructible  at  the  foundations  of  life. 
In  the  midst  of  our  social  tribulation  we  may  be 
of  good  cheer;  for  the  better  law  is  overcoming 
the  world,  and  the  justice  of  love  will  prevail. 
It  is  because  the  thought  of  love  as  law  has  be- 
come a  full-grown  working  ideal  that  many 
voices  are  calling  us  to  repentance.  These  are 
the  voices  of  the  truest  optimism  —  the  optim- 
ism that  has  so  brave  and  joyful  a  faith  in  the 
right  that  it  dares  to  faithfully  portray  the 
wrong.  Repent  ye,  they  cry,  because  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  at  hand  ;  because  a  good  that 
is  better  than  our  best  is  rising  up  in  the  midst 
of  us,  calling  us  to  judgment,  freedom,  and  the 
peace  of  good-will  among  men. 

* 

"  In  this  broad  earth  of  ours, 

Amidst  the  measureless  grossness  and  the  slag, 


40  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

Enclosed  and  safe  within  its  central  heart, 
Nestles  the  seed  perfection. 


"Is  it  a  dream? 

Nay  but  the  lack  of  it  the  dream, 

And  failing  it  life's  lore  and  wealth  a  dream, 

And  all  the  world  a  dream." 


LECTURE   II. 

THE   SOCIAL   SACRIFICE   OF 
CONSCIENCE. 


The  appalling  magnitude  of  the  evil  against  which  he  felt  him- 
self especially  called  to  contend  was  painfully  manifest  to  John 
Woolman.  At  the  outset,  all  about  him,  in  every  department  of 
life  and  human  activity,  in  the  state  and  the  church,  he  saw  evi- 
dences of  its  strength,  and  of  the  depth  and  extent  to  which  its  roots 
had  wound  their  way  among  the  foundations  of  society.  Yet  he 
seems  never  to  have  doubted  for  a  moment  the  power  of  simple  truth 
to  eradicate  it,  nor  to  have  hesitated  as  to  his  own  duty  in  regard  to 
it.  There  was  no  groping,  like  Samson  in  the  gloom  ;  no  feeling 
in  blind  wrath  and  impatience  for  the  pillars  of  the  temple  of  Dagon. 
"  The  candle  of  the  Lord  shone  about  him,"  and  his  path  lay  clear 
and  unmistakable  before  him.  He  believed  in  the  goodness  of  God 
that  leadeth  to  repentance ;  and  that  love  could  reach  the  witness  for 
itself  in  the  hearts  of  all  men,  through  all  entanglements  of  custom 
and  every  barrier  of  pride  and  selfishness.  No  one  could  have  a 
more  humble  estimate  of  himself  ;  but  as  he  went  forth  on  his  errand 
of  mercy,  he  felt  the  Infinite  Power  behind  him,  and  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  had  known  a  preparation  from  that  Power  "  to  stand  as 
a  trumpet  through  which  the  Lord  speaks."  The  event  justified  his 
confidence  ;  wherever  he  went  hard  hearts  were  softened,  avarice  and 
love  of  power  and  pride  of  opinion  gave  way  before  his  testimony  of 
love.  —  John  G.  Whittier. 


II. 

THE   SOCIAL   SACRIFICE   OF 
CONSCIENCE. 

In  like  manner  also  the  chief  priests  mocking  him,  with  the 
scribes  and  elders,  said,  He  saved  others ;  himself  he  cannot  save.  — 
Matt,  xxvii.  41,42. 

In  the  social  problem,  we  are  confronted 
anew  with  the  old  question  of  following  Jesus 
in  Caesar's  realm  ;  and  it  is  the  cross  upon 
which  the  new  conscience  is  crucified.  Can 
we  be  servants  of  truth  and  love  while  paying 
tribute  to  fraud  and  force?  Do  we  believe  in 
the  laws  of  Christ  when  we  continue  to  live 
and  work  under  the  laws  of  Caesar  ?  How  can 
we  free  our  brothers  if  we  ourselves  remain 
involved  and  enslaved  ?  If  we  cannot  save 
ourselves,  how  can  we  save  society  ?  What 
right  have  we  to  witness  for  a  faith  and  a 
future  which  we  do  not  realize  in  our  present 
practice  ?  If  we  be  indeed  Christian  reformers, 
let  us  prove  our  sincerity  by  coming  out  of 
the  evil  system,  and  separating  ourselves  from 
all  its  entanglements  and  iniquities  ;  let  us 
43 


44  BETWEEN   CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

"do  the  thing  we  talk  about;"  let  us  "prac- 
tise what  we  preach."  Thus  we  are  com- 
manded by  both  mocking  oppressors  and  the 
suffering  oppressed  ;  and  with  the  mockery 
of  the  one,  as  well  as  with  the  sorrowful 
doubting  of  the  other,  we  can  have  but  the 
deepest  sympathy. 

Both  our  religious  experience  and  our  polit- 
ical training  go  to  create  and  increase  the 
danger  that  we  shall  yield  to  this  command 
and  temptation  to  deal  with  the  social  problem 
from  an  individual  point  of  view  —  treat  it  as 
a  matter  of  individual  salvation.  Our  passion 
to  individually  extricate  ourselves  from  the 
communal  wrong,  our  anxiety  to  prove  our 
sincerity  by  our  practice,  above  all  our  heart- 
ache for  the  people  whom  we  would  deliver, 
may  betray  us  into  an  evasion  of  the  real  task 
to  which  we  are  summoned.  We  have  here 
one  of  the  many  cases,  common  to  both  indi- 
vidual experience  and  historic  movements,  in 
which  a  hasty  and  uncomprehending  conscience 
may  prove  to  be  our  Judas,  and  drive  us  in 
spiritual  panic  from  the  field  on  which  the 
battle  for  God  and  the  people  is  to  be  fought. 
Already  the  times  are  full  of  new  forms  of 
old  doctrines  for  saving  men  out  of  the  world, 
as  though  God  were  somewhere  else  than  in 


THE   SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.     45 

the  thick  of  the  world's  on-goings.  The  new 
conscience  is  beset  by  reforms  and  reformers 
with  programmes  for  saving  the  world  by  giv- 
ing it  up.  These  doctrines  and  programmes 
are  a  return  of  the  pagan  renaissance  that  has 
brought  betrayal  and  boundless  self-deceit  to 
the  Christian  conscience  since  its  apostolic 
dawn,  leading  every  revival  astray,  balking 
and  defeating  every  attempt  of  that  conscience 
to  claim  the  world  of  fact  as  its  inheritance 
and  kingdom.  The  greatest  spiritual  menace 
to  the  cause  for  which  we  stand  lies  in  this 
return  of  social  unfaith  under  the  guise  of 
redemption.  This  denial  of  God  in  life  and 
history  is  indeed  the  most  hopelessly  infidel 
position  a  man  can  take.  It  will  take  an 
exhaustless  spiritual  nerve,  a  revised  set  of 
spiritual  qualities,  to  bravely  and  unevasively 
face  the  whole  human  question  which  the  social 
problem  sets  for  us  to  answer. 

I.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  a  social  problem 
can  have  only  a  social  solution  for  each  indi- 
vidual member  of  society.  There  is  no  in- 
dividual redemption  from  a  social  system ; 
only  a  social  redemption  will  free  each  indi- 
vidual at  last.  Society  is  an  organism,  and 
not  a  certain  number  of  individuals;  individuals 
are  members   of    the   social   body,  and  can  be 


46  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

healthy  only  in  the  health  of  the  whole  body. 
The  laws  and  customs  which  govern  the  rela- 
tions of  individuals  to  each  other,  and  which 
make  up  the  collective  life,  are  the  larger  and 
ever-increasing  part  of  the  life  of  each  indi- 
vidual. Whether  the  individual  will  or  no,  he 
is  governed  by  the  collective  life,  either  through 
his  willing  acceptance  of  its  facts  and  forces, 
or  through  collision  with  them,  with  the  result- 
ing tragedy. 

In  the  present  unity  and  complexity  of  life, 
there  is  no  way  for  the  individual  to  prac- 
tise his  social  ideal,  if  he  have  one,  until  it  is 
realized  by  society ;  he  can  only  exhaust  the 
possibilities  of  his  life  in  bringing  about  the  re- 
alization ;  he  can  plant  his  life  in  the  common 
life  and  die,  that  he  may  not  abide  by  himself 
alone,  but  may  bring  forth  the  fruit  of  a  re- 
demption which  shall  be  to  all  people.  An  in- 
dividual cannot  practise  national  ownership  of 
land,  except  the  land  be  owned  by  the  nation  ; 
if  his  zeal  be  at  bottom  a  spiritual  self-deceit 
and  cowardice,  he  will  spend  his  time  devising 
ways  whereby  he  may  individually  escape  the 
curse  of  private  ownership  ;  if  his  zeal  be  social 
and  Christian,  born  out  of  love  for  his  brethren, 
he  will  spend  his  life  in  bearing  away  the  curse 
from  his  nation,  and  from  the  world.     An  indi- 


THE   SOCIAL   SACRIFICE   OF  CONSCIENCE.     47 

vidual  cannot  practise  the  public  ownership  of 
utilities,  except  the  utilities  be  publicly  owned  ; 
his  Christian  sacrifice  does  not  lie  in  keeping 
his  hands  clean  of  privately  owned  public  econ- 
omies, but  in  helping  the  people  to  own  their 
economies  in  common.  A  Russian  cannot 
practise  political  democracy,  except  Russia  be- 
come politically  democratic ;  his  service  for 
freedom  does  not  consist  in  his  moving  out  of 
Russia,  but  in  giving  himself  to  making  Russia 
free.  A  man  cannot  escape  the  slavery  of  the 
wage  system,  except  the  system  be  abolished, 
and  there  be  no  more  hirelings  under  the  sun  ; 
indeed,  to  pay  the  best  possible  wages  to  the 
largest  possible  number  may  be  the  precise 
Christian  sacrifice  required  of  a  consistent  op- 
ponent of  the  wage  system.  A  slave  cannot 
practise  freedom,  except  his  shackels  be  broken, 
and  his  freedom  be  secured  in  the  freedom  of 
all  his  brethren  ;  for  no  man's  liberty  is  safe  so 
long  as  there  remains  any  kind  of  slave  upon 
the  earth. 

Nor  is  there  either  escape  for  the  individual, 
or  redemption  for  society,  in  yielding  to  the 
seemingly  noble  impulse  to  withdraw  from 
work  or  part  in  the  order  of  things  which  we 
know  to  be  evil.  The  world  is  too  well  on  to 
its  blossoming  to  be  further  helped  by  schisms 


48  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

or  separations  of  any  sort  soever,  social  or  re- 
ligious. We  shall  miss  God  and  his  freedom, 
this  time,  if  we  journey  into  "far  countries" 
in  search  of  his  promises,  for  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  us  ;  we  must  dig  up  God  and 
freedom  in  ourselves.  There  are  no  more 
Canaans  left  to  go  to ;  the  people  must  be 
their  own  Moses,  and  free  Egypt,  or  remain 
slave.  The  Pilgrims  can  no  more  find  Plym- 
outh Rock  across  the  seas  ;  it  lies  inward,  at 
the  heart  of  the  people.  Let  Abraham  stay  in 
Ur  of  Chaldea,  and  there  fulfil  the  promises 
of  God  in  the  redemption  of  his  city.  Let 
Luther  stay  in  his  monastery,  and  justify  his 
faith  by  making  that  a  shrine  of  the  people. 
Let  every  man  stay  at  his  post  in  "  the  ma- 
chine," as  Jesus  stayed  in  the  complicated  reli- 
gious and  political  machinery  of  his  nation, 
either  to  capture  "the  machine"  by  mighty 
love  and  passion,  or  to  be  ground  up  in  the 
cogs,  that  "the  machine"  may  be  broken,  and 
the  peoples  set  free  to  build  for  love  and  free- 
dom. "  Let  us  bear  the  burden  and  endure  the 
trial,"  says  a  Japanese  mystic,  "  till  the  world 
is  rectified,  and  home  is  found  for  all."  There 
is  no  other  manful  and  apostolic  course  of  dis- 
covery and  achievement  left  open  ;  we  have 
tried   everything  else.     We  have  long  experi- 


THE  SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.     49 

merited  with  ways  of  saving  individuals  out  of 
the  world  ;  it  is  time  to  adopt  Jesus'  original 
idea  of  bearing  away  the  sin  of  the  world,  so 
that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  may  rise  in  our 
midst. 

Social  separation  cannot  be  charged,  of 
course,  against  the  brave  and  self-denying 
men  and  women  who  associate  themselves  in 
co-operative  enterprises  and  colonies,  or  who 
group  themselves  in  social  settlements,  in  order 
to  concentrate  their  efforts,  or  to  educate  the 
people  by  illustrating  social  principles.  But 
the  value  of  these  is  in  the  attention  they  call 
to  the  social  problem  —  their  preaching  and 
teaching  value  ;  they  do  not  profess  to  be  a 
redemption  either  of  or  from  society.  Those 
who  thus  associate  themselves  have  no  notion 
of  escaping  the  communal  guilt  ;  they  purpose 
only  to  more  effectively  bear  that  guilt.  Their 
motive  is  not  a  giving  up  of  the  world  as  bad, 
but  a  taking  up  of  the  responsibility  of  making 
it  good. 

If  New  Testament  philosophy  comes  to  any- 
thing it  is  this  :  that  no  man  liveth  or  dieth 
unto  himself  —  the  same  conclusion  to  which, 
under  different  terms,  the  social  sciences  are 
coming.  For  good  or  ill,  we  are  bound  up 
together  in  one  human  life  and  destiny.     With- 


50  BETWEEN   CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

out  us,  the  patriarchs  and  prophets,  "the  noble 
army  of  the  apostles  and  martyrs,"  cannot  be 
made  perfect.  There  is  no  final  salvation  of 
any  man  from  sin,  until  the  last  prodigal  sets 
his  face  homeward.  There  is  no  ascending 
into  heaven,  save  through  descending  into  hell, 
to  fight  with  the  flame  of  the  pit,  and  deliver 
our  brethren  therefrom.  The  secret  place  of 
the  Most  High,  wherein  is  the  life  that  is  hid 
with  Christ,  on  the  bosom  of  the  peace  that 
passeth  understanding,  lies  under  the  founda- 
tions of  life,  at  the  deepest  roots  of  human 
need.  Here,  and  here  alone,  at  the  sources 
of  the  communal  pain  and  shame,  in  the  thick 
of  the  collective  life  and  struggle,  may  a  man 
rest  his  soul  in  the  heart  of  God,  and  work  the 
works  of  him  who  came  to  save  all  men  from 
seeking  a  righteousness  that  separates  them 
from  their  brothers. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  God,  as  well  as  his 
witness,  cannot  "  practise  what  he  preaches," 
cannot  "do  the  thing  he  talks  about,"  until  the 
whole  human  life  co-operates  with  him  in  the 
practising  or  doing.  "God  has  become  free," 
Lacordaire  used  to  say,  "with  the  liberty  of 
the  citizen."  If  the  theological  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation  is  a  moral  fact,  and  not  a  mere 
metaphysical  definition,  it  means  that  God  him- 


THE  SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.      5 1 

self  is  living  in  the  life  of  the  common  man, 
bearing  the  sins  of  the  downcast  life  as  his 
own  sins,  suffering  the  sufferings  of  the  peo- 
ple in  his  own  heart,  breaking  their  bonds  and 
oppressions  by  the  passion  of  his  love  in  the 
midst  of  them.  The  coming  of  Christ  is  the 
disclosure  of  God  as  the  innermost  presence 
in  every  human  prison-house,  in  every  historic 
tyranny  and  wrong  ;  it  is  the  disclosure  of  the 
suffering  love  of  God  as  the  making-force  of 
history,  as  the  real  power  that  is  leading  the 
collective  life  through  successive  forms  of  ma- 
terial captivity  to  a  common  spiritual  kingship 
and  liberty.  "  The  greatest  of  the  apparent 
contradictions  of  life,"  says  Mr.  Hamilton 
Mabie,  "is  the  fact  that  God  has  led  a  human 
life."  God  himself,  so  we  see  in  Christ,  will 
have  no  righteousness  or  freedom  that  he  may 
not  have  in  the  common  life  of  man  ;  the  soul 
of  God  will  not  be  satisfied  until  we  are  satis- 
fied in  being  like  him. 
\  II.  There  ought  not,  then,  to  be  any  individ- 
ual extrication  from  a  wrong  social  system. 
The  impossibility  of  individual  extrication  from 
the  communal  pain  and  shame,  with  the  Chris- 
tian sacrifice  of  conscience  for  which  that  im- 
possibility calls,  is  the  divine  method  by  which 
the  good  is  to  overcome  and  consume  the  evil. 


52  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

They  who  stay  in  the  existing  order  of  things 
because  they  do  not  believe  in  it,  are  the  ones 
who  will  make  way  for  the  better  order.  Their 
sacrifice  of  the  individual  right  to  do  right,  in 
order  to  give  their  lives  to  procuring  a  common 
righteousness  for  all,  is  the  dynamic  of  the  new 
society.  Through  their  realization  of  their  one- 
ness with  the  communal  guilt,  they  re-enforce 
the  social  movement  with  a  tremendous  gain 
of  saving  sympathy  ;  they  are  able  to  approach 
the  monstrous  facts  of  the  social  problem  with- 
out any  spirit  of  condemnation  towards  individ- 
ual men.  feeling  no  man  to  be  guilty  above 
them  selves.'"?  "It  will  be  noted,"  says  the  poet 
Whittier  oF John  Woolman,  "that  in  his  life- 
long testimony  against  wrong  he  never  lost 
sight  of  the  oneness  of  humanity,  its  common 
responsibility,  its  fellowship  of  suffering  and 
communion  of  sin."  "Sin,"  continues  the  poet, 
"was  not  to  him  an  isolated  fact,  the  responsi- 
bility of  which  began  and  ended  with  the  indi- 
vidual transgressor ;  he  saw  it  as  a  part  of  a 
vast  network  and  entanglement,  and  traced  the 
lines  of  influence  converging  upon  it  in  the 
underworld  of  causation.  Hence  the  wrong 
and  discord  which  pained  him  called  out  pity, 
rather  than  indignation."  To  thus  stay  with 
loving  protest  amidst  the  common  wrong  and 


THE   SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.      53 

suffering,  recognizing*  one's  self  as  a  causal  part 
of  it  all,  refusing  to  believe  in  strife  and  tyr- 
anny as  social  reality  or  fact,  seeing  God  invisi- 
ble as  the  living  and  becoming  presence  within 
the  misery  and  prejudice,  —  this  is  an  infinitely 
harder  and  Christlier  course  of  service  than  to 
endure  and  protest  as  one  apart  from  the  guilt 
and  shame ;  for  there  is  a  self-righteous  satis- 
faction in  treading  the  wine-press  alone  that 
one  does  not  find  in  treading  it  in  company 
with  his  brothers.  But  it  is  only  those  who 
toil  and  endure  with  their  brethren,  in  the 
thick  of  the  wrong  and  struggle  with  which 
society  travails,  who  will  furnish  the  sympathy 
and  dynamic  able  to  bring  forth  redemption 
and  freedom.  "Through  the  tangled  thicket" 
of  social  and  industrial  wrong  "  there  is  but 
one  deliverer  that  can  make  his  way,  and  as  of 
old  his  name  is  the  Prince  of  Love." 

Not  for  a  moment  would  I  excuse  the  indi- 
vidual from  becoming,  in  the  fullest  sense  of 
the  term,  the  living  incarnation  of  the  truth 
which  he  proclaims.  A  profound  and  search- 
ing simplification  of  one's  life  is  the  beginning 
of  social  service.  Under  no  circumstances,  is 
private  luxury  tolerable ;  it  is  not  only  not 
Christian  :  in  a  world  of  wretched  want  and 
poverty,    it    is    indecent   and  criminal.     There 


54  BETWEEN  CAESAR   A tVD  JESUS. 

can  never  be  any  justifiable  splendor  save 
communal  splendor,  giving  beauty  and  glory 
to  each  individual  life.  Most  urgently  would  I 
agree  with  Edward  Carpenter,  that  "there 
seems  but  one  immediate  step  that  the  wealthy 
despoiler  can  take  —  which  at  the  same  time  is 
a  most  obvious  step — and  that  is,  at  once  or 
as  soon  as  ever  he  can,  to  place  his  life  on  the 
very  simplest  footing."  Not  only  for  "  the 
wealthy  despoiler,"  but  for  every  one  of  us  who 
live  by  the  labor  of  others  —  as  all  of  us  do  live 
who  belong  to  the  so-called  educated  classes  — 
"  the  most  obvious  thing  "  is  to  cost  our  broth- 
ers as  little  of  injury  and  toil  as  we  can  while 
we  serve  them.  But  the  Christian  will  always 
simplify  his  life  with  reference  to  the  service 
of  others,  and  not  with  reference  to  an  indi- 
vidual escape.  And  when  he  has  clone  his  best, 
he  will  count  that  best  as  but  a  preparation  for 
the  service  of  his  brethren,  and  not  as  a  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  of  life.  For  their  sakes 
he  will  sanctify  himself,  in  order  that  they  also 
may  be  sanctified  in  the  truth  that  sets  men 
free. 

There  is  a  passion  for  individual  perfection, 
an  effort  to  escape  the  sin  and  guilt  of  the 
world,  that  is  at  bottom  a  profound  spiritual 
selfishness,    an    inverted    egoism.      There    are 


THE   SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.     55 

times  when  to  do  the  absolutely  right  thing, 
as  we  call  it,  would  be  the  greatest  wrong  a 
man  could  do.  There  are  circumstances  under 
which  a  man  has  no  right  to  do  right ;  when 
he  can  be  individually  guiltless  only  by  being 
guilty  of  the  blood  of  others,  only  by  the  be- 
trayal of  sacred  trusts.  There  are  places  and 
crises  in  which  a  man  must  be  morally  wrong 
in  order  to  be  nobly  true  and  spiritually  right  ; 
and  considerations  of  public  morality  may  com- 
pel a  man  to  endure  relations  which  are  pro- 
foundly immoral,  from  his  point  of  view,  but 
which  are  the  embodiment  of  the  highest  legal 
and  conventional  morality.  "  There  be  climb- 
ings  which  ascend  to  depths  of  infamy,"  says 
Maarten  Maartens  ;  "there  be  also  —  God  is 
merciful !  —  most  infamous  fallings  into  hea- 
ven." There  are  more  senses  than  one  in 
which  conscience  makes  cowards  of  us  all. 
Those  of  us  who  have  sinned  and  suffered 
deeply,  who  have  been  caught  unawares  in 
complications  to  which  we  can  see  no  end,  who 
have  been  heart-broken  and  beaten  to  the  dust 
by  the  knowledge  of  our  part  in  the  hideous 
things  of  the  existing  order,  know  well  what 
it  means  to  look  a  selfish  and  fearful  con- 
science in  the  face  and  defy  it  as  a  liar  and 
a  tempter.    The  way  of  mere  individual  extrica- 


fc> 


56  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

tion  and  escape  may  always  be  put  down  as  the 
way  of  selfishness  and  spiritual  death.  No 
spiritual  values  will  be  finally  recognized  as 
genuine  that  are  not  social  values,  that  do  not 
gain  their  worth  from  the  sacrifice  of  service. 

For  instance,  in  the  present  system  of  things, 
a  college  education  is  a  monopoly  of  oppor- 
tunity ;  by  teaching  in  a  Christian  college,  sup- 
ported by  interest  or  profit  on  endowments,  I 
am  a  monopolist  as  well  as  Mr.  Rockefeller ; 
but  I  do  not  see  that  I  can  further  the  king- 
dom of  God  by  having  nothing  to  do  with 
colleges,  or  by  bringing  up  my  children  in 
ignorance,  in  order  that  I  may  have  a  barren 
individual  guiltlessness.  I  do  not  conceive  that 
I  can  persuade  the  public  to  own  its  utilities 
by  staying  at  home,  and  refusing  to  deliver 
whatever  message  I  may  have,  in  order  that 
I  may  escape  the  moral  suffering  of  riding  on 
privately  owned  and  publicly  corrupting  rail- 
ways. I  do  not  believe  tl*at  I  can  help  to  bear 
away  the  competitive  system  by  trying  to  get 
out  of  it,  in  order  that  I  may  "practise"  the 
law  of  love  by  myself,  or  in  company  with  a 
few  kindred  spirits  ;  I  should  fear  that  such 
co-operative  love  might  turn  out  to  be  a  subtle 
and  dreadful  co-operative  selfishness.  I  can 
not  leaven  the  world  by  taking  leaven  out  of 


THE  SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.     $/ 

it,  in  order  that  I  may  monopolize  some  of  it 
for  my  own  salvation,  for  that  is  what  it  comes 
to  ;  if  I  so  save  my  life  I  lose  it,  as  I  ought  to 
lose  it.  If  I  would  have  part  in  removing  any 
individual  or  organized  sin  from  among  men, 
I  must  get  under  it  :  I  can  do  nothing  by 
taking  a  position  in  Mars,  and  then  talking 
at  the  world  from  the  long  range  of  superior 
advantage  ;  that  is  always  immoral.  The  best 
that  a  guiltless  onlooker  can  do  for  the  world 
is  to  keep  his  mouth  shut ;  it  is  an  imperti- 
nence for  him  to  come  meddling  with  the 
affairs  of  sinning  and  suffering  men. 

Sometimes,  when  we  hunger  for  a  spiritual 
comradeship  we  fancy  our  day  does  not  afford, 
we  reach  sad  hands  across  the  centuries,  to 
clasp  in  ghostly  fellowship  with  the  renowned 
and  saintly  dead,  who  by  great  living  and  mar- 
tyr dying  glorified  the  early  Christian  ages. 
Here,  think  we,  we  shall  find  disentangled  souls 
in  perfect  communion  with  goodness.  But 
when  the  search-light  of  the  historian  pierces 
the  mystic  halo  religious  romance  has  gathered 
about  these  clays  of  sanctity  and  martyrdom, 
we  find  the  early  Christian  heroes  involved  and 
baffled  like  ourselves,  serving  often  from  false 
motives,  learning  wisdom  through  folly  and 
failure,  entering  peace  out  of  great  pain.     None 


58  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

of  the  reformers  were  without  a  narrow  and 
inadequate  conception  of  their  mission  ;  none 
of  them  wrought  out  the  will  of  God  unalloyed 
with  selfish  ambition,  unbiassed  by  personal 
opinion  and  desire.  Calvin  was  the  power  of 
God  for  political  and  moral  progress ;  but  he 
consented  to  the  burning  of  his  antagonist. 
Cromwell  was  God's  anointed  champion  of  lib- 
erty ;  but  he  was  himself  the  prince  of  despots. 
Human  life  continues  its  rise  because  men 
strong  in  their  very  imperfections,  rise  up  to 
press  the  race  closer  home  to  God,  that  he  may 
ever  be  breathing  into  it  the  breath  of  new 
life.  When  the  Son  of  man  next  comes,  to 
quote  sweet  Edward  Carpenter  again,  "  he  will 
present  no  stainless  perfection  ;  but  he  will  do 
better  :  he  will  bring  something  absolute,  primal 
—  the  living  rock  —  something  necessary  and 
at  first  hand  —  and  men  will  cling  to  him  there- 
fore." We  shall  yet  see  that  much  of  what 
seems  for  the  time  imperfect  is,  in  its  fitness 
for  its  function  or  service,  divinely  perfect. 
That  which  would  be  crude  and  faulty  in  the 
perfect  society  may  be  perfectly  organized  to 
regenerate  the  imperfect  society  ;  perfectly  or- 
ganized to  prepare  man  for  the  new  earth 
which  God  may  command,  sooner  than  we 
think,  to  come  forth  from  our  social  nebulae. 


THE   SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.     59 

III.  But  if  there  is  no  individual  extrication 
from  a  wrong  social  system,  will  not  the  effect 
of  preaching  this  be  baffling  and  paralyzing  to 
individual  responsibility  ?  Some  of  you,  I  know, 
have  been  anxiously  asking  this  question  while 
I  have  been  speaking.  Yet  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  have  been  doing  nothing  else  than  heap 
up  the  responsibility  which  Christ  and  the 
times  call  the  individual  to  manfully  bear.  I 
have  tried  to  show  that  the  charge  a  man  has 
to  keep  is  the  common  well-being  of  all  his 
brethren,  and  not  merely  his  own  soul.  I  have 
not  even  allowed  him  the  negative  comfort, 
which  some  take  unto  their  souls,  of  saying 
that  if  civilization  gives  him  only  adulterated 
food,  sweat-shop  clothes,  corrupt  highways,  po- 
litical falsehood,  monopolized  opportunities,  he 
is  not  to  blame,  so  he  earn  his  "keep,"  and  live 
"the  life  of  love."  I  am  contending  that  he 
is  to  blame;  that  the  soul  that  consents  to 
existing  social  or  political  or  economic  arrange- 
ments, whereby  some  of  the  sons  of  God  are 
given  privileges  and  opportunities  above  other 
sons  of  God,  is  a  lost  soul.  The  salvation  of  a 
Chicago  man's  soul  may  depend  upon  his  atti- 
tude toward  the  subject  of  municipal  franchises, 
or  toward  the  tax-assessments  of  railway  prop- 
erty ;   while    his  church  and  his  prayers  may 


60  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

literally  have  no  more  to  do  with  his  soul  than 
the  geology  of  the  moon.  The  sin  that  is 
destroying  American  souls  is  that  of  ignorance, 
apathy,  and  indifference  concerning  the  politi- 
cal and  economic  evils  that  are  eating  out  the 
heart  of  the  nation,  and  making  every  man 
guilty  of  his  brothers'  blood.  The  evangelist 
who  really  wants  to  save  American  souls  from 
spiritual  death,  and  not  get  success  for  himself 
and  approval  for  his  doctrines,  will  set  about 
arousing  these  souls  against  the  national  evils 
that  darken  and  destroy.  No  man  is  saved 
until  he  is  saved  from  silence  and  inactivity 
concerning  every  known  evil,,  and  has  given 
his  life  to  the  procuring  of  all  known  common 
good.  The  substance  of  all  salvation  lies  in 
redemption  from  living  for  one's  self,  in  any 
spiritual  or  material  form  whatsoever.  To 
preach  any  other  sort  of  a  salvation  is  simply 
a  gross  religious  imposture,  a  leading  of  men 
into  darkness,  a  fundamental  denial  of  individ- 
ual responsibility.  The  church  that  stands  for 
a  mere  saving  and  culture  of  the  individual  soul 
is  the  abode  of  the  lost,  and  not  an  ark  of 
safety. 

Private  property  in  righteousness  is  the  worst 
form  of  private  property  ;  and  self-interest  in 
pursuit  of  righteousness  is  the  essence  of  evil. 


THE  SOCIAL   SACRIFICE   OF  CONSCIENCE.     6 1 

To  be  content  to  have  while  others  have  not,  to 
be  content  to  be  right  while  others  are  bound 
and  crushed  with  wrong,  to  be  content  to  be 
saved  apart  from  the  common  life,  to  seek 
heaven  while  our  brothers  are  in  hell,  is  deepest 
perdition  and  not  salvation  ;  it  is  the  mark  of 
Cain  in  a  new  form.  "  Under  a  government 
which  imprisons  any  unjustly,  the  true  place  for 
a  just  man  is  also  in  prison,"  said  Thoreau,  who 
individually  rebelled  against  his  government, 
but  remained  at  his  post  of  service  and  took  a 
rebel's  punishment.  If  the  Christian  con- 
science of  our  nation  would  rise  to  the  true 
measure  of  its  responsibility,  and  behold  the 
width  and  breadth  and  grandeur  of  its  oppor- 
tunity, it  must  first  descend  into  the  pain  and 
shame  of  our  economic  system,  to  be  beaten 
with  many  religious  and  political  stripes,  to  be 
despised  and  rejected  by  the  powerful  and  the 
respectable.  Only  through  giving  itself  as  a 
ransom  for  the  many,  through  the  emancipation 
of  the  whole  human  life,  can  the  Christian  con- 
science gain  for  itself  the  freedom  and  right  to 
do  right. 

IV.  There  is,  then,  but  one  final  answer  to 
the  question  of  the  relation  of  the  disciple  of 
Jesus  to  the  laws  of  Caesar.  He  must  conquer 
Caesar's  realm,    and    transfer   the    law-making 


62  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

functions  to  Jesus.     Caesar  and  Jesus  will  be- 
come one  at  last,  and  the  prophecy  for  which 
the  papacy  stands  thus  be  fulfilled  :   then  the 
Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall 
be  the  shepherd  of  the  people,  who  shall  hunger 
and  thirst  no  more,  neither  in  spirit  nor  body. 
Until  the  conquest  is  complete,  the  disciple  has 
no  choice  but  to  fall  into  the  chasm  between 
Caesar  and  Jesus  and  die,  that  his  sacrifice  may 
form  a  living  stone  in  the  bridge  over  which  the 
ransomed    society  shall  pass  into   the  realized 
kingdom   of  heaven.     There  is  no  way  out  of 
the  social  pain  and  shame,  out  of  the  communal 
sin  and  guilt,  save  deep  through  it,  to  the  other 
side.    We  may  not  drink  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine, 
until  the  kingdom  of  God  be  come  :  that  is,  we 
may  not  enjoy  the  abundant  liberty  of  life  and 
love,  until  we  can  enjoy  it  in  fellowship  with  all 
our  brethren,  in  a  world  of  "  rest  from  all  self- 
seeking,  and  where  no  man's  interest  or  activity 
would  conflict  with  that  of  another."     The  only 
Christian  innocence  in  a  world  of  wrong  is  the 
sacrifice    of    one's    life    in    bearing    away   that 
wrong.     The  world  is  overcome  because  of  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb,  and   because  of  the  testi- 
mony of  those  who  love  not  their  life,  even  unto 
death.     The  sacrifice  of  conscience  in  service 
is  the  redemptive  force  that   is  to  save  society. 


THE  SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.     63 

To  this  social  sacrifice  of  conscience  Jesus 
is  no  exception  ;  he  is  rather  the  most  concrete 
example.  Jesus  used  the  Jewish  synagogues, 
travelled  the  Roman  roads,  paid  tribute  to 
Caesar,  and  straitened  himself  by  the  common 
straits.  Meanwhile,  he  put  a  life  and  an  idea 
into  the  world  that  consumed  the  throne  of  the 
Caesars,  and  that  will  yet  level  all  our  pluto- 
cracies ;  a  life  and  an  idea  that  will  break  every 
bond  and  free  every  man  from  the  rule  of  man. 
But  he  did  it  by  staying  with  the  people,  by 
being  beaten  with  their  stripes,  by  being 
ground  up  in  "the  machine."  He  identified 
himself  with  the  common  lot  and  bondage,  re- 
fusing to  separate  himself  in  anything  from 
the  entanglements  and  hard  experiences  in 
which  all  his  brethren  were  involved  by  the 
then  existing  social  order  and  political  system. 
It  is  by  this  quality  of  sacrifice  that  Jesus  bears 
away  the  sin  of  the  world. 

If  we  would  follow  Jesus  in  the  social  re- 
demption, it  will  not  be  by  escaping  Caesar  and 
his  tribute,  nor  by  fleeing  from  competition, 
wages,  and  monopoly  ;  but  it  will  be  by  the 
faithful  service  of  outpoured  lives  that  will  yet 
count  strong  enough  to  storm  the  citadel  of 
monopoly,  take  its  weapons  and  engines,  and 
thus    end   the    economic   war    that    wastes   our 


64  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

work  and  fields  and  homes.  The  powers  that 
be  are  ordained  of  God  to  help  us  to  create 
better  powers  and  gain  larger  freedom.  God 
ordained  monopoly  to  compel  us  to  industrial 
democracy.  In  the  machinery  of  civilization 
the  vast  majority  of  human  beings  must  live 
their  lives ;  we  can  only  save  the  people  from 
being  ground  to  profit  by  capturing  the  ma- 
chinery, so  that  it  shall  become  the  organ  of 
love  and  liberty.  "  Are  we,  the  men  of  to-day," 
cried  our  beloved  Dr.  John  P.  Coyle,  among 
the  last  words  he  left  us,  "  divine  enough,  is 
there  enough  of  God  in  us,  to  go  through  with 
what  we  have  begun,  and  breathe  the  breath  of 
life  into  these  beings  which  we  have  created, 
that  they  may  become  living  souls  ?  "  If  we 
cannot  make  economic  facts  the  expression  of 
the  highest  spiritual  forces,  if  the  love  of 
Christ  is  not  strong  and  wise  enough  to  cap- 
ture and  organize  the  world  for  perfect  free- 
dom, if  the  deepest  life  of  the  soul  is  not  the 
real  soul  of  material  things,  then  the  world  is 
unredeemed,  and  we  have  nothing  left  but  the 
immoral  hope  of  escaping  something  of  the 
misery  which  overwhelms  and  swallows  our 
brethren.  But  we  have  not  so  learned  Christ, 
and  he  hath  not  let  us  off  with  so  unworthy  a 
charge  as  the  keeping  of  our  own  souls  amidst 


THE  SOCIAL   SACRIFICE    OF  CONSCIENCE.     6$ 

a  common  perdition.  We  are  sent  to  declare 
the  justice  of  love  to  the  nations  and  their  in- 
stitutions ;  to  announce  that  love  is  both  retrib- 
utive and  constructive  law.  Go  ye,  therefore, 
into  all  the  world,  and  call  laws  and  economies, 
religions  and  moralities,  to  answer  for  their 
ability  to  secure  relations  of  equality  and 
freedom  among  men. 

The  religious  initiative  for  which  the  social 
movement  calls,  the  spiritual  dynamic  that  is 
to  effect  the  social  change,  waits  for  that  holy 
passion  for  the  ideal,  without  which  Hegel 
affirms  "that  nothing  great  in  the  world  has 
been  accomplished."  To  enlighten  the  yet  un- 
taught Christian  conscience,  to  mobilize  the 
spiritual  forces  of  Christendom  for  the  eco- 
nomic redemption,  it  will  take  the  old  apostolic 
faith  in  the  value  of  fervent  witnessing  for 
simple  truth.  "  Only  let  us  accept  and  boldly 
profess  the  truth  to  which  we  are  called,"  says 
Tolstoi',  "  and  we  should  find  at  once  that  hun- 
dreds, thousands,  millions  of  men  are  in  the 
same  position  as  we,  that  they  see  the  truth  as 
we  do,  and  dread  as  we  do  to  stand  alone  in 
recognizing  it."  "  When  a  certain  point  in  the 
diffusion  of  the  truth  has  been  reached,"  says 
this  prince  of  individualists,  "it  is  suddenly  as- 
similated by  every  one,  not  by  the  inner  way, 


66  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

but,  as  it  were,  involuntarily."  "  Just  as  a  single 
shock  may  be  sufficient,"  he  continues,  "when 
a  liquid  is  saturated  with  some  salt,  to  precipi- 
tate it  at  once  in  crystals,  a  slight  effort  may 
be  perhaps  all  that  is  needed  now"  to  create  a 
"  public  opinion  consistent  with  conscience  ;  " 
"  and  through  this  change  of  public  opinion, 
the  whole  order  of  life  may  be  transformed." 
V.  The  Christian  reformer  is  thus  one  whose 
mission  is  to  preach  what  he  cannot  yet  prac- 
tise ;  one  who  has  that  quality  of  faith  which 
dares  to  build  on  the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for,  but  as  yet  unseen.  He  shakes  his 
ideal  in  the  face  of  the  world,  unabashed  by 
the  demand  that  he  shall  prove  his  sincerity 
by  his  practice.  Plausible  as  seems  the  de- 
mand, deep  and  distracting  as  is  his  yearning 
to  individually  realize  the  ideal  for  which  he 
stands,  he  yet  knows  that  the  demand  and  the 
yearning  are  a  temptation  to  desert  the  real 
battle  the  followers  of  the  Son  of  God  are  sent 
to  fight  for  the  people.  So,  with  the  frank- 
ness and  fidelity  of  the  perfect  love  that  casteth 
out  fear,  he  testifies,  early  and  late,  that  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  with  its  righteous 
judgments  ;  with  the  freedom  of  equality,  and 
the  justice  of  love.  And  when,  while  living 
the  life  of  love  entangled  by  facts  of  force  and 


THE  SOCIAL   SACRIFICE   OF  CONSCIENCE.     6j 

fraud,  he  is  able  to  so  utter  the  law  of  love 
that  his  word  will  bring  the  practical  man  to 
organize  the  world  by  that  law,  he  will  then 
have  done  the  greater  works  than  Jesus  did. 

No  such  responsibility  was  ever  laid  upon 
men  as  that  which  is  laid  upon  the  Christian 
reformer  by  the  crisis  of  social  change ;  no 
such  ethical  strain  ever  came  to  the  human 
conscience.  A  daily  moral  and  spiritual  cru- 
cifixion is  the  sacrifice  which  he  has  to  lay 
upon  the  altar  of  human  need,  if  he  fulfils 
his  service  to  the  end.  It  would  be  infinitely 
easier  to  give  up  property,  if  property  he  has, 
or  to  practise  something  definite  in  company 
with  kindred  spirits,  or  even  to  give  his  body 
to  be  burned,  than  it  is  to  nerve  his  whole 
being,  to  summon  all  his  energies,  to  the 
never-ending  task,  to  the  matchless  spiritual 
heroism,  of  pouring  out  his  soul  unto  death  for 
a  public  cause,  for  a  common  righteousness, 
for  a  future  good,  for  a  social  destiny,  in  which 
he  can  have  neither  fruit  nor  part  in  the  flesh. 
It  is  not  a  mere  material  sacrifice,  or  a  physical 
martyrdom  that  is  required  ;  if  it  were  only 
that,  how  easy  and  joyful  would  be  the  sacri- 
fice !  Who  cares  for  poverty,  for  the  stake, 
the  fire,  the  dungeon,  the  gallows,  or  the  rack, 
if  that  were  all  ?     If  in  such  fashion  the  sin  of 


68  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

civilization  might  be  borne  away,  thousands 
would  respond  without  a  second  thought,  and 
with  hosannas  on  their  lips.  But  it  is  this 
standing  for  an  order  of  life  which  men  to- 
gether must  accept  or  together  be  lost,  and 
which  he  alone  cannot  practise  save  by  desert- 
ing his  brothers,  that  constitutes  the  moral 
tragedy  in  the  soul  of  the  Christian  reformer, 
as  he  faces  the  social  problem.  In  order  to 
stay  in  the  thick  of  the  wrong  and  help  his 
brethren,  he  must  hang  his  head  in  shame  at 
the  consciousness  of  his  own  forced  hypocrisy. 
He  sees  his  own  life  as  a  hideous  compromise 
and  evasion,  entangled  and  broken  by  all  the 
things  he  hates.  In  order  to  save  others,  he 
literally  cannot  save  himself  ;  in  order  to  make 
possible  a  better  human  future,  he  must  lite- 
rally take  part  in  the  sins  and  oppressions  of 
the  present.  It  is  by  this  daily  spiritual  dying, 
by  this  life-long  denial  of  one's  true  and  inmost 
self,  by  this  hourly  crucifixion  of  all  one's  ideals 
of  life  and  love,  that  the  social  problem  brings 
unique  significance  and  suffering  to  the  Chris- 
tian conscience.  These  are  the  crosses,  crowd- 
ing every  highway  of  service,  on  which  the 
apostle  of  to-morrow's  freedom  is  nailed  for 
every  word  of  truth,  for  every  bold  act  of  spir- 
itual manhood.     This  is  the  martyrdom  which 


THE  SOCIAL   SACRIFICE   OS    CONSCIENCE.    69 

civilization  exacts  of  those  who  would  dedicate 
their  lives  to  moral  and  social  liberation,  a 
martyrdom  unlike  anything  since  the  days 
when  the  priests  and  politicians  bid  the  Man 
of  the  Cross  attest  his  power  to  save  others  by 
saving  himself. 

And  who  is  sufficient  for  this  martyrdom  of 
soul  ?  Where  are  the  saints  able  to  prove 
their  sainthood  in  the  willingness  to  be  no 
saints,  that  the  whole  human  life  may  be 
socially  sanctified  at  last  ?  Where  are  the 
anointed  ones  who  will  descend  into  the  eco- 
nomic hell,  that  they  may  ascend  with  hell  and 
its  inhabitants  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ? 
Where  are  the  saviors  who  will  lose  their  own 
souls,  that  they  may  save  the  soul  of  the  race  ? 
Let  them  arise,  and  come  quickly !  For  them 
wait  the  captives  and  captains  of  industry 
alike  ;  for  them  wait  the  heart  of  God,  and 
the  destiny  of  the  world. 


LECTURE   III. 

PUBLIC   RESOURCES   AND   SPIRITUAL 
LIBERTY. 


Thus  the  condition  of  the  masses  in  every  civilized  country  is, 
or  is  tending  to  become,  that  of  virtual  slavery  under  the  forms 
of  freedom.  And  it  is  probable  that  of  all  kinds  of  slavery  this 
is  the  most  cruel  and  relentless.  For  the  laborer  is  robbed  of  the 
produce  of  his  labor,  and  compelled  to  toil  for  a  mere  subsistence ; 
but  his  taskmasters,  instead  of  human  beings,  assume  the  form  of 
imperious  necessities.  Those  to  whom  his  labor  is  rendered  and 
from  whom  his  wages  are  received  are  often  driven  in  their  turn, 
contact  between  the  laborers  and  the  ultimate  beneficiaries  of  their 
labor  is  sundered,  and  individuality  is  lost.  The  direct  responsi- 
bility of  master  to  slave,  a  responsibility  which  exercises  a  softening 
influence  upon  the  great  majority  of  men,  does  not  arise ;  it  is  not 
one  human  being  who  seems  to  drive  another  to  unremitting  and 
ill-requited  toil,  but  "  the  inevitable  laws  of  supply  and  demand,"  for 
which  no  one  in  particular  is  responsible.  The  maxims  of  Cato  the 
Censor  —  maxims  which  were  regarded  with  abhorrence  even  in  an 
age  of  cruelty  and  universal  slaveholding  —  that  after  as  much  work 
as  possible  is  obtained  from  a  slave  he  should  be  turned  out  to  die, 
become  the  common  rule ;  and  even  the  selfish  interest  which  prompts 
the  master  to  look  after  the  comfort  and  well-being  of  the  slave  is 
lost.  Labor  has  become  a  commodity,  and  the  laborer  a  machine. 
There  are  no  masters  and  slaves,  no  owners  and  owned,  but  only 
buyers  and  sellers.  The  higgling  of  the  market  takes  the  place  of 
every  other  sentiment.  —  Henry  George. 


III. 

PUBLIC    RESOURCES   AND    SPIRIT- 
UAL  LIBERTY. 

From  possessions  which  have  become  private  property,  and 
which  now,  strangely  enough,  are  regarded  as  the  very  foundation 
of  good  order,  spring  all  the  crimes,  both  of  myth  and  of  history. 
—  Richard  Wagner. 

Let  it  be  understood  that  those  of  us  who 
approach  the  social  problem  as  religious  teach- 
ers, are  not  departing  from  our  specific  calling 
as  ministers  to  human  souls.  So  far  as  we  are 
concerned,  there  is  still  but  one  thing  impor- 
tant and  interesting,  and  that  is  the  soul  of 
man.  Whatever  else  is  or  is  not  sacred,  the 
soul  is  the  one  certainly  and  eternally  sacred 
concern.  "  One  soul,"  says  Emerson,  "  is  wiser 
than  the  whole  world."  It  is  for  the  sake  of 
the  soul  that  we  are  saying  things  about  the 
problems  and  conditions  of  society.  If  the 
social  movement  meant  simply  more  bread  and 
a  larger  bulk  of  things  for  each  man,  we  should 
not  be  so  concerned  about  its  outcome.  It  is 
in  order  that  each  man  may  stand  free  and 
73 


74  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

unafraid  to  face  the  problem  of  his  own  life, 
and  make  of  his  life  an  original  and  complete 
contribution  to  the  human  whole,  that  we  seek 
for  him  more  bread  and  better  things.  Our 
charge  against  civilization  and  its  economic 
system  is,  that  it  destroys  the  human  soul. 
We  would  not  go  so  far  as  Mr.  Emerson,  who 
declares  that  "  society  is  a  conspiracy  against 
the  manhood  of  every  one  of  its  members." 
But  we  do  declare  that  the  present  industrial 
order  attacks  the  citadel  of  every  soul's  faith, 
and  the  foundations  of  its  freedom.  In  try- 
ing to  find  the  roots  and  sources  of  economic 
wrong,  in  seeking  to  set  forth  the  principles 
of  economic  right,  we  are  realizing  the  sole 
meaning  and  end  of  religion  ;  for  religion  is 
relations.  To  save  human  souls  is  to  individ- 
ualize and  establish  them  in  right  relations  — 
that  is,  in  outward  and  inward  conditions  of 
justice,  harmony,  and  freedom. 

In  freedom  alone  does  the  soul  thrive  and 
blossom.  Freedom  comes  to  each  man  solely 
through  an  original  vision  of  truth.  Civiliza- 
tions, religions,  and  things  are  valuable  just 
to  the  extent  that  they  are  useful  in  procuring 
freedom  for  each  soul  to  see  truth  for  itself, 
and  to  individualize  its  truth  in  life  and  word. 
The  freedom  of  each  man  to  see  truth  face  to 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     75 

face,  to  stand  erect  and  fearless  in  the  light 
of  his  truth,  to  conceive  and  bring  forth  his 
destiny  through  his  own  communion  with  truth, 
is  the  only  thing  worth  while.  The  truth,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  John  Jay  Chapman,  is  whatever 
so  focuses  our  attention  as  to  bring  "  all  the 
life  within  us  into  harmony.  When  this  hap- 
pens to  us,  we  discover  that  truth  is  the  only 
thing  we  had  ever  really  cared  about  in  the 
world."  "  But,"  he  says,  "  as  the  whole  of  us 
responds  to  it,  so  it  takes  a  whole  man  to  do  it. 
Whatever  cracks  men  up  and  obliterates  parts 
of  them,  makes  them  powerless  to  give  out 
this  vibration.  This  is  about  all  we  know  of 
individualism  and  the  integrity  of  the  individ- 
ual. The  sum  of  all  the  philosophies  in  the 
history  of  the  world  can  be  packed  back  into 
it.  All  the  tyrannies  and  abuses  in  the  world 
are  only  bad  because  they  injure  this  integ- 
rity ; "  they  "  are  only  odious  because  they 
injure  some  individual  man's  spirit." 

A  man's  spirit  is  injured,  the  citadel  of  his 
being  is  attacked,  by  whatever  obstructs,  binds, 
or  destroys  his  freedom  to  see  and  live  the 
truth  for  himself,  no  matter  whether  it  be  a 
statute  law,  a  religious  creed,  or  an  economic 
condition.  Ultimately,  anything  and  every- 
thing  that    hinders  this  freedom  will  have  to 


76  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

go.  The  sooner  we  begin  to  take  hands  off 
the  soul,  take  our  things  and  laws  off,  the  less 
of  blood  and  agony  the  soul  will  have  to  go 
through  in  the  inevitable  achieving  of  its  free- 
dom. To  emancipate  human  life  from  every- 
thing that  begets  necessity  and  fear,  so  that 
each  man  may  have  absolute  command  of  his 
own  powers,  so  that  each  may  find  perfect  poise 
in  his  own  individual  faith,  so  that  before  each 
may  open  a  clear  path  of  spiritual  adventure, 
this  is  the  only  evangelism,  the  real  progress. 

Only  the  absolutely  freed  soul  can  become 
the  complete  social  man,  the  willing  servant  of 
the  common  good.  In  order  that  each  may  take 
his  place  as  a  true  member  and  minister  of  the 
brotherhood,  and  thus  make  his  life  a  perfect 
function  of  the  social  whole,  he  must  be  free 
to  fulfil  his  serving  capacity  according  to  his 
own  individuality  and  faith.  This  freedom  is 
the  goal  which  the  extreme  socialist  and  the 
extreme  individualist  alike  seek.  Is  was  Fichte, 
"  the  ecstatic  proclaimer  of  the  glory  of  the  in- 
dividual will,"  who  said  :  "  Nothing  can  live  by 
itself  or  for  itself  ;  everything  lives  in  the  whole ; 
and  the  whole  continually  sacrifices  itself  to 
itself  in  order  to  live  anew.  This  is  the  law  of 
life.  Whatever  has  come  to  the  consciousness 
of  existence  must  fall  a  victim  to  the  progress 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     J  J 

of  all  existence.  Only  there  is  a  difference, 
whether  you  are  dragged  to  the  shambles  like  a 
beast  with  bandaged  eyes,  or  whether,  in  full 
and  joyous  presentment  of  the  life  which  will 
spring  forth  from  your  sacrifice,  you  offer  your- 
self freely  on  the  altar  of  eternity."  This 
liberty  to  offer  one's  self  freely  is  the  worth 
and  meaning  of  all  liberty.  It  is  the  right  to 
do  right  —  the  hid  treasure  for  which  every 
historic  movement  has  been  a  search.  To  do 
right  is  to  sacrifice  one's  self  in  the  service  of 
the  common  life.  The  quest  for  liberty  for 
each  to  give  himself  to  all,  in  an  unfettered 
and  unfearing  service  of  his  own  choosing,  is 
the  substance  of  the  social  problem ;  which  is 
thus  the  problem  of  spiritual  liberty. 

The  social  problem  is  fundamentally  eno- 
nomic  because  all  privileges  rest  upon  economic 
supports.  Every  social  question  resolves  itself 
into  a  question  of  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  ;  into  a  question  of  economic  in- 
dependence or  dependence.  Is  it  in  the  nature 
of  things  that  the  fields  of  natural  resources, 
and  the  fruits  of  human  toil,  should  be  reaped 
as  special  privileges  for  the  few,  or  as  common 
benefits  for  all  ?  Is  superior  ability  a  title-deed 
to  as  much  of  the  earth  as  it  can  possess,  and 
to  the  use  of  human  beings  for  private  profit, 


y8  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

or  is  it  a  divine  summons  to  larger  and  hum- 
bler service  for  the  common  good  ?  Did  God 
create  our  world  and  race  in  order  that  the 
strong  might  heap  up  wealth  out  of  the  forced 
labor  of  the  millions,  and  is  such  an  order  of 
things  the  destiny  that  man  must  accept  ?  By 
what  device  or  right  are  the  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  God  daily  sent  to  tasks  of  creating  sup- 
plies out  of  nature,  while  their  needs  of  body 
and  spirit  go  unsupplied,  and  they  have  only 
toil  and  bare  existence  for  their  portion  ?  Who 
gave  this  earth  to  the  profit-makers,  and  by 
what  authority  do  they  set  the  children  of  the 
earth  to  making  gain  for  them  ?  By  what  pro- 
cess or  alchemy  have  the  resources  of  nature 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  strong,  and  how 
comes  it  that  human  life  is  practically  treated 
as  mere  grist  for  the  capitalist  mill  ?  Is  it  the 
end  of  civilization  that  industry  should  develop 
into  a  monstrous  universal  profit-making  ma- 
chine, into  which  the  multitudes  are  to  be  fed 
to  be  ground  out  as  the  increased  capital  for 
private  owners  ?  Every  nation,  every  con- 
science that  has  a  right  to  be  called  Christian, 
searches  for  the  answer,  and  every  reform  waits 
for  it.  It  is  thus  that  the  social  problem  is 
the  problem  of  human  destiny. 

Now,  the  most  fatal  difficulty  in  the  way  of 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     79 

economic  change  in  behalf  of  spiritual  liberty 
is  revealed  by  the  empty  individualistic  maxims 
persistently  offered  as  social  remedies.  "  If 
men's  hearts  are  only  set  right,"  says  the  reli- 
gious teacher,  "the  system  of  things  will  be 
set  right."  "Any  man  can  get  on,"  says  the 
authoritative  commercial  instructor  of  both 
priest  and  people,  "  if  he  is  only  honest  and 
industrious."  Yet  all  classes  alike  are  more 
or  less  shamefully  conscious  of  the  sneaking 
piety  and  wanton  commercial  hypocrisy  of 
these  maxims.  The  worst  is,  that  the  teachers 
of  this  hypocrisy  ostentatiously  masquerade  as 
optimists  ;  although  the  notion  that  the  pres- 
ent state  of  society  is  the  best  we  can  have,  or 
that  existing  wrongs  and  inequalities  will  be 
righted  through  individualistic  piety,  is  our  most 
mischievous  and  cowardly  pessimism. 

To  begin  with,  our  economic  system  denies 
any  adequate  moral  responsibility  to  the  vast 
majority  of  human  beings  ;  and  there  is  no  in- 
dividual responsibility  where  there  is  no  ability 
to  respond.  We  destroy  the  ability  of  the  peo- 
ple to  morally  respond,  and  then  hold  them 
morally  responsible.  We  deny  the  people  moral 
rights,  and  then  demand  of  them  that  they  be 
morally  right.  We  build  civilization  on  the 
backs   of  the   people,  and  then   piously  enjoin 


8o  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

them  to  get  up.  We  fasten  yokes  and  fetters 
on  the  people,  and  then  blame  them  for  not 
"getting  on."  We  go  on  creating  and  support- 
ing an  economic  order  that  morally  and  physi- 
cally exhausts  the  multitudes,  and  then  condemn 
the  social  grist  for  the  industrial  mill  out  of 
which  it  has  been  ground.  When  Richard  Wag- 
ner declared  his  faith  that  the  people  would  be 
the  artists  of  the  future,  and  that  from  the 
most  absolute  democracy  the  true  music  would 
come,  his  critics  pointed  to  the  multitudes  as 
a  conclusive  answer.  "This  mob,"  he  said  in 
reply,  "  is  in  no  wise  a  normal  product  of  real 
human  nature,  but  is,  instead,  the  artificial  pro- 
duct of  your  unnatural  culture ;  all  the  crimes 
and  horrors  which  you  find  so  repulsive  in  this 
mob,  are  only  desperate  incidents  of  the  war 
which  real  human  nature  is  waging  against  its 
cruel  oppressor  —  modern  civilization."  "  From 
possessions,"  he  says,  "which  have  become  pri- 
vate property,  and  which  now,  strangely  enough, 
are  regarded  as  the  very  foundation  of  good 
order,  spring  all  the  crimes,  both  of  myth  and 
of  history."  The  effort  for  economic  equality 
and  freedom  is  not  an  attempt,  as  the  unthink- 
ing say,  to  relieve  the  individual  of  responsi- 
bility for  his  own  character  and  conditions  ;  it 
is  an  effort  to  place  under  his  feet  the  founda- 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     8l 

tions  of  individual  responsibility,  so  that  for  the 
first  time  he  shall  have  opportunity  to  account 
for  his  own  character  and  conditions. 

Nearly  all  the  evils  which  we  are  in  the  habit 
of  attributing  to  bad  hearts  are  in  reality  the 
moral  fruits  of  our  economic  struggles  and  in- 
equalities. It  is  a  Biblical  ethical  exactness 
and  social  insight  which  leads  Mr.  W.  D.  How- 
ells  to  conceive  of  economic  inequality  as  the 
sum  of  "  almost  all  the  sins  and  shames  that 
ever  were."  "In  the  body  of  this  death,"  he 
confesses,  "  they  fester  and  corrupt  forever. 
As  long  as  we  have  inequality  we  shall  have 
these  sins  and  shames,  which  spring  from  it, 
and  which  live  on  from  inferior  to  superior." 
"  Half  the  crimes  committed  by  human  beings," 
said  John  Brisben  Walker  to  the  students  and 
faculty  of  the  Catholic  University  at  Washing- 
ton, "  come  from  frightful  poverty,  or  an  over- 
abundance of  wealth  — or  from  efforts  to  escape 
the  one,  or  acquire  the  other."  "The  study  of 
the  causes  of  poverty,"  says  Professor  Marshall, 
"  is  the  study  of  the  causes  of  the  degradation 
of  a  large  part  of  mankind."  Notwithstanding 
that  many  of  the  poor  lead  less  incomplete  lives 
than  many  who  have  wealth,  "  for  all  that,"  he 
declares,  "  their  poverty  is  a  great  and  almost 
unmixed  evil  to  them."     "  Morals  rise  and  flue- 


82  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

tuate  with  trade,"  says  Mr.  Arthur  Sherwell,  in 
his  philosophic  little  book  on  "  Life  in  West 
London."  "What  are  the  results  of  your  ob- 
servations and  investigations  ? "  I  asked  an 
ardent  rescue-worker,  who  had  spent  five  years 
in  dealing  with  what  we  are  pleased  to  call 
"fallen  girls,"  and  who  began  his  work  without 
the  slightest  hint  of  the  existence  of  an  eco- 
nomic problem.  "  Do  you  see  that  great  depart- 
ment store  ? "  he  asked  in  reply.  "  The  system 
there  embodied  is  the  cause.  In  that  depart- 
ment store,  three  thousand  girls  are  employed 
at  an  average  weekly  wage  of  three  and  one- 
half  dollars.  Upon  that  wage  they  are  expected 
to  live,  and  appear  neatly  dressed  in  their  places 
of  work.  They  must  pay  room-rent,  board,  car- 
fare, and  clothe  themselves.  Those  who  do  not 
pay  board  help  support  families  at  home.  They 
cannot  live  decently  in  this  city  on  less  than  six 
or  seven  dollars  a  week.  At  best,  their  life  is 
one  of  helpless,  rayless  poverty.  The  evil  we 
seek  to  remedy  comes  almost  as  a  matter  of 
course.  This  store  is  but  an  instance  of  a 
whole  system  of  things  that  drags  down  thou- 
sands where  individual  effort  can  lift  up  one. 
There  is  no  remedy  but  a  changed  economic 
system." 

The  experience  and  testimony  of  this  rescue- 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     83 

worker  applies  to  the  whole  range  of  moral 
evils  which  we  point  out  as  causes,  when  they 
are  in  reality  effects.  Perhaps  a  quarter  of  a 
million  people  will  sit  clown  in  the  saloons  of 
Chicago  to-night;  not  to  get  drunk,  or  even  to 
drink,  for  vast  numbers  of  them  do  not  drink  at 
all ;  but  because  the  saloon  is  the  only  social 
shrine,  the  only  municipal  drawing-room,  in 
which  the  greater  number  of  citizens  can  get 
together  as  human  beings,  and  "  shake  their 
hearts  out "  to  each  other,  as  the  Germans  say. 
In  this  sense,  the  saloon  fulfils  a  public  and 
profoundly  religious  function,  which  the  church 
and  municipal  system  have  alike  failed  to  offer  ; 
it  is  the  only  social  refuge  that  gives  warmth 
and  color,  relief  and  fellowship,  to  millions  of 
toilers.  The  drunkenness  and  crime  which  fol- 
low are  the  direct  fruits  of  the  social  system. 
In  her  last  years,  Miss  Willard  declared  poverty 
to  be  the  cause  of  drunkenness  as  well  as  drunk- 
enness the  cause  of  poverty.  We  privileged 
classes  are  wickedly  insensible  to  the  fact  that, 
to  the  majority  of  human  beings  in  what  we 
call  Christendom,  the  sensations  of  drink  and 
sexuality  are  the  only  experiences  which  make 
life  interesting ;  the  only  things  that  give  anti- 
cipation and  romance  to  life ;  the  only  sacra- 
ments of  human  fellowship,  save  the  common 


8,;  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

misery  and  poverty.  Centuries  ago,  the  great 
Augustine  declared  physical  immorality  to  be 
perverted  divine  yearnings  after  fellowship. 
And  more  than  four  hundred  years  before  Aug- 
ustine, Jesus  declared  that  the  harlots  and  pub- 
licans would  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  before 
those  of  us  who  belong  to  the  privileged  and 
religious  classes,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they 
are  infinitely  better  than  we  are  :  they  still  have 
yearnings,  while  we  seek  a  private  property  in 
righteousness,  and  the  safety  of  our  interests 
in  the  existing  order. 

A  newer  and  truer  evangelistic  effort  will 
throw  its  energy  and  ardor  into  changing  the 
system  of  things  which  destroys  human  lives 
by  the  thousand  where  the  old  evangelism  can 
save  one.  An  evangelism  that  has  a  genuine 
interest  in  really  saving  individual  souls,  in- 
stead of  a  subtle  and  self-deceiving  interest  in 
its  own  success  as  to  numbers,  will  lay  the  axe 
at  the  root  of  the  tree  of  economic  evil,  upon 
which  all  manner  of  moral  evils  grow  as  natural 
fruits.  The  individual,  says  Mr.  George,  "  is 
a  mere  link  in  an  enormous  chain  of  producers 
and  consumers,  helpless  to  separate  himself, 
and  helpless  to  move,  except  as  they  move. 
The  worse  his  position  in  society,  the  more 
dependent  is  he  on  society  ;  the  more  utterly 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     85 

unable  does  he  become  to  do  anything  for  him- 
self. The  very  power  of  exerting  his  labor  for 
the  satisfaction  of  his  wants  passes  from  his  own 
control,  and  may  be  taken  away  or  restored  by 
the  actions  of  others,  or  by  general  causes  over 
which  he  has  no  more  influence  than  he  has 
over  the  motions  of  the  solar  system."  It  is 
because  evangelists  and  philanthropists  have 
refused  to  face  the  economic  sources  of  moral 
evil,  to  confess  the  economic  supports  of  moral 
superiority,  that  their  honesty  is  rightly  ques- 
tioned, and  their  appeals  either  unheard  or 
heard  only  with  contempt.  "  These  persons 
are  not  wrong  in  saying  that  poverty  and  the 
social  problem  have  a  moral  cause,"  says  Mr. 
John  A.  Hobson,  "but  they  are  wrong  in  the 
place  where  they  seek  the  moral  cause.  It  will 
be  found  ultimately  to  reside  not  in  the  corrupt 
nature  of  the  poor,  worker  or  idler,  but  in  the 
moral  cowardice  and  selfishness  of  the  superior 
person,  which  prevent  him  from  searching  and 
learning  the  economic  supports  of  his  superior- 
ity, and  which  drive  him  to  subtle  theorizing 
upon  'the  condition  of  conditions'  in  order  to 
avoid  the  discovery  that  his  'superiority'  is 
conditioned  by  facts  which  at  the  same  time 
condition  the  'inferiority'  of  the  very  persons 
whom  he  hopes  to  assist.     The  work  of  grad- 


86  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS.  \ 

ually  placing  'property'  upon  a  natural  or  ra- 
tional basis,  offering  that  equality  of  opportunity 
which  shall  rightly  adjust  effort  to  satisfaction, 
is  a  moral  task  of  supreme  importance."  Moses' 
first  step  in  disciplining  the  individual  Israel- 
ites in  the  ethics  and  politics  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments was  the  demand  upon  Pharaoh  to 
let  the  people  go  ;  the  first  act  in  the  moral 
drama  of  each  man  was  the  economic  and  polit- 
ical liberation  of  the  whole  people.  The  first 
step  in  the  development  of  negro  minds  and 
souls  was  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  first 
step  in  the  spiritual  salvation  of  the  present- 
day  individual  is  the  deliverance  of  the  people 
of  Christendom  from  economic  servitude.  This 
is  the  supreme  evangelistic  call,  which  no  pious 
subterfuge  proposing  to  "  set  men's  hearts  right " 
can  any  longer  evade  ;  it  is  the  commanding 
spiritual  task,  which  will  not  move  aside  for 
any  theological  or  commercial  bluff.  Individ- 
ual "  regeneration  does  not  precede  reforma- 
tion, and  is  not  the  cause  of  it,"  says  Dr.  S.  C. 
Eby,  an  able  Swedenborgian  writer.  "  On  the 
contrary,  the  reformation  prepares  the  way  for 
the  regeneration,  and  is  an  indispensable  condi- 
tion of  it."  The  time  has  come  to  distinctly 
say  that  civilization  must  be  born  again,  in  that 
the  individual  may  see  the  kingdom  of  God. 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     8/ 

But  a  changed  economic  system  is  essential 
to  the  salvation  of  the  privileged  classes  from 
monstrous  ideals  of  right.  Every  advantage 
which  raises  some  above  others,  and  thus  di- 
vides society  into  privileged  and  unprivileged 
classes,  is  at  bottom  some  sort  of  monopoly  of 
opportunity  secured  by  economic  advantage. 
All  superiority  is  thus  inherently  monopolistic, 
and  therefore  unsocial  and  immoral  to  begin 
with  ;  it  can  only  become  moral  by  exhausting 
itself  in  making  common  the  things  and  privi- 
leges which  the  economic  system  has  made 
special.  Privileges  and  powers  that  are  special 
result  in  an  utterly  immoral  standard  of  moral 
values  ;  in  the  enormous  magnifying  of  com- 
paratively small  sins,  and  the  closing  of  eyes 
to  the  great  parent  crimes  and  sources  of  evil. 
"A  thousand  souls  are  probably  destroyed 
through  perjury  to  the  tax-assessor,"  said  Pro- 
fessor Macy,  the  other  day,  "where  one  is 
destroyed  through  drunkenness."  "The  half- 
developed  animal  man,"  says  Horatio  W.  Dres- 
ser, "who  commits  one  crime,  and  is  then 
condemned  to  a  life  among  those  upon  which 
a  thoughtless  society  has  set  its  stamp  as 
incurably  'depraved '  —  instead  of  treating  them 
as  human  beings  to  be  elevated  —  may  not  be 
nearly  as  wicked   as   the  cruel   capitalist   who 


88  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

oppresses  his  employees  as  though  they  were 
slaves,  or  those  who  throughout  their  lives 
make  it  easy  for  the  sinner  whom  society  ac- 
cepts as  of  good  repute."  Who  can  deny  that 
successful  coveteousness,  although  denounced 
by  Jesus  and  the  Scriptures  as  the  supreme 
crime  against  God  and  nations,  has  yet  been 
the  great  American  virtue,  commanding  the 
highest  respect  of  church  and  society  ?  On  the 
other  hand,  the  New  Testament  virtues  that 
make  for  simplicity  and  mutual  service  com- 
mand scarcely  any  social  respect,  and  debar 
from  social  privileges.  "  The  evil  base  of  our 
society  eats  right  through,"  says  Edward  Car- 
penter ;  "  that  our  wealthy  homes  are  founded 
on  the  spoliation  of  the  poor  vitiates  all  the  life 
that  goes  on  within  them.  Somehow  or  other 
it  searches  through  and  degrades  the  art,  man- 
ners, dress,  good  taste  of  the  inmates."  Our 
accepted  standards  of  moral  values  train  us  to 
strain  at  gnats  of  moral  weakness,  and  to  swal- 
low camels  and  whole  caravans  of  economic  and 
political  iniquity.  Morality  has  been  degraded 
to  a  matter  of  sheer  social  might  and  privilege. 
With  the  moral  standards  produced  by  our 
economic  system,  it  is  no  wonder  that  our  peri- 
odic appeals  to  "good  citizens,"  to  organize  to 
save  their  city,  or  reform  the  nation,  have  be- 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     89 

come  grotesque  and  clownish.  The  "good  citi- 
zens" we  call  upon  to  rise  above  their  material 
self-interests  —  and  that  on  the  ground  of  more 
material  self-interest,  lest  the  political  corrup- 
tion they  have  begotten  sweep  their  material 
things  away  —  are  in  fact  the  socially  worst;  it 
is  from  them  the  city  and  the  nation  need  sav- 
ing. The  social  redemption  will  come,  at  last, 
through  the  people  the  "good  citizens"  exploit 
and  fear.  The  "good  citizens"  are  the  chief 
enemies  of  goodness  ;  the  men  of  "  blameless 
lives  "  are  the  high  priests  of  wrongs  that  af- 
front the  skies,  that  blaspheme  the  universe, 
and  that  make  the  very  stones  cry  out  against 
the  suffering  of  man.  "  The  sinners  are  with 
us,"  bitterly  cried  Lord  Shaftesbury  ;  "  it  is  the 
saints  who  fight  against  us."  "Child  murder 
in  factories,  chattel-slavery,  prisoner-flogging  — 
which  of  these  has  not  had  upon  its  side  the 
majority  of  the  good  ? "  asks  an  English  social 
writer  ;  "  leaseholds  of  tyranny,  ignorance,  and 
squalor  would  not  be  worth  twelve  months'  pur- 
chase, but  for  the  unselfish,  devoted  men  and 
women  willing  to  die  in  the  support  of  any  lie 
or  injustice."  "You  are  told,"  said  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, in  a  speech  at  Edinburgh,  delivered  on 
June  30,  1892,  "that  education,  that  enlighten- 
ment, that  leisure,  that  high  station,  that  politi- 


90  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

cal  experience,  are  arrayed  in  the  opposing  camp, 
and  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  cannot  deny  it.  I 
painfully  reflect  that  in  almost  every  one,  if  not 
in  every  one,  of  the  greatest  political  controver- 
sies of  the  last  fifty  years,  whether  they  affected 
the  franchise,  whether  they  affected  commerce, 
whether  they  affected  religion,  whether  they 
affected  the  bad  and  abominable  institution  of 
slavery,  or  what  subject  they  touched,  these 
leisured  classes,  these  educated  classes,  these 
wealthy  classes,  these  titled  classes  have  been 
in  the  wrong."  It  is  this  defence  of  evil  sys- 
tem by  "good"  men  that  constitutes  the  tra- 
gedy of  progress.  The  Father  forgives  them, 
as  the  sons  of  men  forgive  them,  because  they 
know  not  what  they  do.  They  are  as  truly 
victims  of  a  false  system  and  training  as  the 
little  children  who  are  to-day  working  beside 
their  mothers  in  West  Virginia  coal-pits.  They 
are  "the  lost"  whom  the  Christ  comes  to  save 
in  the  social  revolution.  Let  us  hope  that 
some  of  these,  at  least,  will  repent  while  there 
is  yet  time,  before  the  day  of  dreadful  reckoning 
comes  on,  and  they  are  called  to  repentance  by 
barricaded  streets  and  burning  cities,  by  wasted 
and  trampled  fields. 

But  public  or  political    morality,  even  more 
than  what  we  call  individual  and  social  morality, 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     9 1 

is  destroyed  by  the  economic  system.  If  any 
text  for  this  proposition  were  needed,  it  was 
furnished,  the  other  day  by  Mr.  Charles  T. 
Root,  representing  the  Merchants'  Association 
of  New  York  City  at  a  meeting  of  vast  finan- 
cial interests  here  in  Chicago.  His  address,  as 
reported  by  the  Times-Herald  of  Oct.  6,  1898, 
began  with  this  very  candid  and  solemn  thesis  : 
"  The  commercial  element  in  this  country 
shall  have  its  rightful  due,  and  that  due  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  preponderating 
influence  in  national  and  state  legislation." 
The  political  corruption  of  which  we  complain 
is  simply  the  overflow  of  the  business  corrup- 
tion by  which  "the  commercial  element  "  gains 
and  maintains  this  "  preponderating  influence." 
Political  corruption  is  an  integral  part  of  the 
present  business  system.  In  fact,  political 
bribery,  both  direct  and  indirect,  is  the  founda- 
tion upon  which  industry  and  commerce  now 
rest.  Behind  every  political  "  ring  "  you  may 
find  the  private  owners  of  public  franchises. 
In  New  York  City,  the  bottom  municipal  ail- 
ment is  not  Tammany  Hall  and  its  retainers, 
but  the  business  interests  that  use  Tammany 
Hall  to  buy  legislation  at  Albany,  and  to  buy 
franchises  at  the  City  Hall ;  Tammany  is  but  a 
symptom,  or  a  disease,  of  an  economic  system 


92  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

that  is  through  and  through  corrupt  and  morally 
exhausted.  It  is  "  business "  that  balks  our 
attempts  at  better  city  government  ;  that  easily 
bridles  and  saddles  our  feeble  and  halting  muni- 
cipal reforms,  and  mounts  them  with  "  good 
citizens  "  who  will  ride  them  in  the  direction  of 
property  interests.  It  is  "  business  "  that  elects 
and  corrupts  our  state  and  national  legislatures, 
and  debauches  all  our  sacred  political  functions. 
There  is  scarcely  any  legislation  in  the  land, 
municipal  or  state  or  national,  that  is  not  now 
bought  and  sold  in  the  open  market.  What 
Justice  Harlan  intimated,  in  his  dissent  from 
the  Income  Tax  Decision,  is  a  fact  :  constitu- 
tional government  has  been  practically  over- 
thrown in  America  by  the  "preponderating 
influence"  of  "the  commercial  element"  in 
legislation.  Our  national  courts  are  largely 
taken  up  with  the  crimes  and  difficulties  which 
they  themselves  have  created  as  the  instru- 
ments of  corporate  properties  ;  as  the  agents  of 
private  owners  of  public  utilities.  The  "  com- 
mercial element  "  has,  or  is  quickly  gaining, 
control  of  every  national  situation,  threatening 
the  integrity  and  perpetuity  of  every  existing 
government.  It  controls  international  diplo- 
macy, makes  and  breaks  treaties  for  its  profit, 
and    increasingly  menaces    the    liberty  of   the 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     93 

world.  In  my  seventh  lecture,  I  shall  refer  at 
length  to  some  of  the  methods  and  combina- 
tions by  which  American  economic  and  political 
liberties  are  being  entirely  subverted  in  the 
interests  of  private  and  corporate  property. 

Worse  than  all  else,  the  economic  system  cor- 
rupts the  sources  of  public  opinion,  and  baffles 
the  free  expression  of  such  free  opinion  as  re- 
mains. "  It  would  be  hard  to  find,"  says  Mr. 
Chapman,  "  a  civilized  people  who  are  more 
timid,  more  cowed  in  spirit,  more  illiberal,  than 
we."  The  reason  is  writ  so  large  that  even 
the  blind  may  read.  The  money  that  owns  the 
public  press,  that  inspires  its  despatches  and 
writes  its  editorials,  also  dictates  what  shall  be 
taught  in  our  colleges,  and  qualifies  the  utter- 
ances of  the  pulpit  to  an  immeasurably  larger 
degree  than  we  are  willing  to  admit  ;  and  it  is 
gradually  adopting  legal,  journalistic,  and  aca- 
demic means  to  suppress  freedom  of  speech. 
As  an  instance  of  the  educational  influence  of 
money,  let  me  quote  from  one  of  the  speakers 
at  the  recent  annual  convention  of  Illinois 
bankers.  "  Largely  through  the  efforts  of  the 
American  Bankers'  Association,"  says  this 
speaker,  "  a  school  of  commerce  and  politics 
has  been  established  at  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago,  and  from    it    much    may  be    hoped."     I 


94  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

quote  from  the  address  as  it  was  published  in 
the  Times-Herald  of  Oct.  26,  1898.  But  the 
university  referred  to  is  in  no  sense  whatever 
an  exception  ;  the  smallest  western  college  is 
just  as  much  dependent  on  the  good-will  of 
money  as  Chicago  University.  All  our  educa- 
tional and  missionary  organizations  elect  men 
to  their  boards  for  the  bald  reason,  when  di- 
vested of  its  pious  phrases,  that  they  have 
money  ;  and  this  without  a  thought  of  how  the 
money  is  obtained.  The  social  conscience  of 
our  day,  and  the  depthless  human  need  from 
whence  it  cries,  are  as  but  dust  in  the  balance 
when  weighed  with  the  subtle  and  indirect,  yet 
absolute,  influence  of  money  over  both  religion 
and  politics.  If  I  were  to  stand  before  any 
representative  religious  gathering  in  the  land, 
and  there  preach  actual  obedience  to  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  declaring  that  we  must 
actually  do  what  Jesus  said,  I  should  commit  a 
religious  scandal;  I  should  henceforth  be  held 
in  disrepute  by  the  official  religion  that  bears 
Jesus'  name.  If  the  head  of  some  great  oil 
combination,  though  it  had  violated  every  law 
of  God  or  man,  besides  the  so-called  economic 
laws  which  neither  God  nor  man  ever  had  any- 
thing to  do  with,  and  though  it  had  debauched 
our  nation  infinitely  beyond  the  moral  shock  of 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     95 

the  Civil  War,  were  to  stand  before  any  repre- 
sentative religious  gathering  with  an  endow- 
ment check  in  his  hand,  he  would  be  greeted 
with  an  applause  so  vociferous  as  to  partake  of 
the  morally  idiotic.  And,  mind  you,  the  con- 
demnation of  the  miserable  spectacle  rests  not 
upon  the  monopolist,  but  upon  ourselves  ;  upon 
those  of  us  who  worship  at  his  shrine,  and  teach 
and  preach  by  the  grace  of  his  endowments. 
It  is  we,  not  he  and  his  gifts,  that  represent  the 
complete  prostitution  of  public  opinion.  He  in- 
carnates an  immeasurably  robuster  type  of  ethi- 
cal manhood  than  the  people  who  make  his 
interests  their  lord.  We  have  surrendered  our 
spiritual  liberties  into  the  hands  of  money,  and 
we  have  done  it  with  an  ignorance  most  culpa- 
ble. We  deserve  to  work  our  way  out  of  eco- 
nomic bondage  with  shame  and  tears. 

Retribution  for  the  whole  common  life  in- 
heres in  the  nature  of  our  property  system. 
Historically  and  ethically,  private  ownership 
of  natural  resources  rests  upon  fraud,  violence, 
and  force.  "Nature,"  says  St.  Ambrose,  whom 
I  shall  quote  more  at"  length  in  my  next  lec- 
ture, "  gave  all  things  in  common  for  the  use 
of  all ;  usurpation  created  private  right."  Great 
private  ownership  has  always  been  created  out 
of  sheer  appropriation  of    the    common   lands 


$6  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

and  resources,  or  else  out  of  the  private  use  of 
public  franchises  and  functions.  In  speaking 
of  a  single  instance  of  "the  moral  devastation 
which  has  been  wrought  in  the  community"  by 
the  private  ownership  of  a  public  utility,  Dr. 
Gladden  says:  "No  despotic  government  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  to-day  possesses  so  much  power 
over  the  economic  welfare  of  a  people  as  has 
been  held  and  exercised  by  one  hundred  men, 
at  the  head  of  the  great  railway  systems  of  the 
United  States."  "  It  is  not  true,"  he  says, 
"that  this  is  a  free  country.  It  is  a  rich  coun- 
try, a  prosperous  country,  but  it  is  not  a  free 
country."  To  permit  an  ownership  which  thus 
subverts  the  liberties  of  the  people  is  the  es- 
sence of  public  infidelity  and  irreligion. 

The  immorality  of  private  ownership  cannot 
take  refuge  in  legal  enactments.  Legal  owner- 
ship rests  upon  force,  and  not  upon  ethics  ;  it 
is,  as  Mr.  Carpenter  has  pointed  out,  a  mere 
"power  to  prevent  others  from  using."  A  man 
has  no  ethical  right  to  possess  what  he  is  not 
using  for  the  common  good.  Private  ownership 
is  social  trusteeship,  that  is  all ;  it  is  not  private 
ownership  in  any  real  or  right  sense. 

Nor  can  great  private  ownerships  be  said  to 
grow  out  of  the  profitable  use  of  public  re- 
sources.    There  has  never  been  such  a  thing 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     97 

as  profit.  The  so-called  surplus  value,  from 
which  profit  theoretically  springs,  is  a  pure 
fiction.  Profit  is  a  form  of  forcibly  appropri- 
ating the  produce  of  the  labor  of  others,  an 
historical  device  for  using  human  beings  as  the 
creatures  of  private  interest.  The  use  of  human 
beings  for  private  and  corporate  gain  can  only 
end  in  the  enslavement  of  spirit  on  the  one 
side,  and  the  tyranny  of  power  on  the  other 
side.  Whatever  form  it  may  take,  whether 
power  be  full  of  good-will  or  ill-will,  the  power 
to  make  profit  out  of  things  is  the  power  to 
enslave  and  exploit  human  life. 

Precisely  such  a  form  of  force  is  the  wage- 
system  which  Professor  Letourneau  calls  the 
last  evolution  of  slavery.  Let  the  intent  of 
the  wage-master  be  as  benevolent  as  it  may, 
the  wage-system  is  through  and  through  a 
slave-system  in  its  essence.  Even  at  its  best, 
the  relation  of  employer  and  wage-earner  is 
subversive  alike  of  good  workmanship,  of  high 
morality,  and  of  freedom.  Noble  ideals  and 
individual  initiative  do  not  inhere  in,  or  spring 
from,  the  idea  of  master  and  men.  "  It  is  only 
after  prolonged  perversion  of  feeling  and  of 
ideas,"  says  Rousseau,  "that  it  becomes  possi- 
ble for  a  man  to  recognize  a  master  in  one  like 
to  himself."     "  Every  created  being  is,  by  na- 


98  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

ture,  independent  of  every  other,"  says  Abbe 
Lamennais ;  "  and  if  the  highest  of  celestial 
spirits  were  to  come  of  his  own  accord,  and 
with  no  sanction  but  his  own  will,  to  dictate 
laws  to  man,  to  acquire  dominion  over  him,  I 
should  see  in  him  but  a  tyrant,  and  in  his  sub- 
jects only  slaves."  This  is  precisely  what  the 
private  ownership  of  public  resources,  with  its 
system  of  wages  and  economic  dependence, 
comes  to ;  it  is  essential  absolutism  and  despot- 
ism, be  it  ever  so  kindly.  Caesar  is  none  the 
less  Caesar,  and  Caesarism  none  the  less  against 
the  divine  course  of  things,  though  Caesar  be 
be  full  of  piety  and  good-will.  They  who  pos- 
sess the  world's  resources  have  mankind  at 
their  mercy,  its  very  freedom  to  think  and 
breathe,  with  a  certainty  that  no  Caesar  ever 
dreamed  of.  If  a  few  men  own  the  earth,  we 
can  live  on  the  earth  only  on  their  terms.  It 
is  economic  power  alone  that  can  reduce  hu- 
manity to  madness ;  that  can  bring  the  race  to 
to  its  knees  in  a  way  that  would  make  the 
mightiest  empire  seem  as  but  a  rope  of  sand. 
The  armies  of  emperors  and  conquerors  are  as 
mushrooms  compared  with  the  armies  of  dol- 
lars which  human  beings  must  have  or  starve. 
It  is  this  economic  throne,  already  casting  its 
dread  shadow  of  universal  empire  over  a  fearful 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.     99 

and  anxious  world,  that  wage-earners  are  build- 
ing for  their  masters,  good  and  bad  alike.  Only 
with  the  abolition  of  the  wage-system,  says  Pro- 
fessor Letourneau,  will  humanity  "be  prepared 
for  physical,  moral,  and  mental  perfection,  and 
will  realize  for  the  first  time  the  full  meaning 
of  life's  happiness."  The  freeing  of  men  from 
this  system  is  the  task  to  which  the  soul  of 
freedom  now  summons  the  peoples  and  their 
institutions. 

It  follows,  then,  that  the  public  ownership  of 
the  sources  and  means  of  production  is  the  sole 
answer  to  the  social  question,  and  the  sole  basis 
of  spiritual  liberty.  Private  ownership  of  pub- 
lic resources  is  private  ownership  of  human  be- 
ings. "  He  who  owns  my  sustenance,"  says 
Alexander  Hamilton,  "  owns  my  moral  being." 
Both  body  and  soul  are  enslaved  by  a  system 
which  makes  one  human  being  dependent  upon 
another  for  the  opportunity  to  earn  his  bread 
and  develop  his  life.  So  long  as  the  resources 
of  the  people  are  privately  owned,  so  that  men 
are  obliged  to  sell  their  labor-power  to  the 
owners  for  sustenance,  they  are  not  free  mem- 
bers of  society  or  of  the  state  ;  they  are  not 
even  free  to  worship  God  according  to  their 
own  light  and  intuitions.  He  who  sells  his 
labor-power,  under  the  compulsion  of  necessity, 


IOO  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

for  the  mere  means  of  existence,  is  in  no  sense 
a  really  free  man.  There  is  no  security  for 
any  sort  of  liberty,  no  basis  for  a  complete  and 
free  individuality,  except  in  a  civilization  in 
which  all  shall  work  for  the  common  good,  and 
each  have  free  access  to  the  supply  of  every 
sort  of  need.  In  order  that  each  may  be  secure 
in  the  private  property  wherewith  to  express 
his  individuality,  the  resources  upon  which  the 
people  in  common  depend  must  by  the  people 
in  common  be  owned  and  administered.  The 
common  ownership  of  the  earth  is  the  only 
ground  upon  which  true  property  and  liberty 
can  be  built,  the  only  soil  in  which  individuality 
may  take  root.  Liberty  as  a  human  fact  means 
communism  in  natural  resources,  democracy  in 
production,  equality  in  use,  private  property  in 
consumption,  and  the  responsibility  of  each  for 
all  and  of  all  for  each. 

So  we  may  trace  back  to  an  economic  source 
every  one  of  our  social  questions,  and  the  whole 
immediate  problem  of  spiritual  liberty.  Every 
religious  and  political  question  may  be  found 
to  be  fundamentally  economic.  Questions  of 
the  individual  soul,  questions  of  national  poli- 
tics, finally  resolve  themselves  into  questions  of 
economic  right  and  duties.  Historic  religious 
persecutions,  when  analyzed,  are  found  to  come 


PUBLIC  RESOURCES,  SPIRITUAL  LIBERTY.    IOI 

from  political  weapons  in  the  hands  of  economic 
interests.  Present  day  political  corruption  has 
its  sources  and  supports  in  economic  might. 
By  economic  force  human  beings  are  used  as 
creatures  of  private  and  corporate  profit.  Eco- 
nomic necessity  compels  the  millions  to  toil  for 
the  luxury  and  power  of  the  few,  and  destroys 
the  power  of  toilers  to  revolt.  Every  sort  of 
freedom,  religious  and  intellectual,  political  and 
social,  rests  back  upon  economic  freedom. 

That  economic  and  spiritual  liberty  are  in- 
separable lies  in  the  nature  of  life  and  things. 
It  is  by  the  free  use  of  things  that  spirit  comes 
to  self-realization  and  liberty.  In  a  world  where 
life  is  work  and  growth,  the  motives  and  con- 
ditions under  which  work  must  be  done,  the 
way  and  spirit  in  which  the  fruits  of  work  are 
shared,  involve  the  whole  well-being  of  each 
man,  and  finally  determine  the  quality  of  man's 
faith  in  God.  The  economic  liberty  which  se- 
cures equality  of  opportunity  is  the  only  ground 
on  which  the  sons  of  men  can  rise  to  the  glory 
of  the  sons  of  God  ;  the  only  ground  on  which 
man  can  achieve  his  destiny  of  organized  love. 
The  production  and  distribution  of  wealth  for 
the  common  good  will  prove  to  be  the  highest 
form  of  spiritual  liberty  yet  attained.  The 
quest  for  this  spiritual  liberty  is  the  motive  by 


102  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

which  the  social  drama  must  be  interpreted  ; 
and  the  spirit  of  private  ownership  is  the  villain 
in  the  drama. 

Out  of  no  spirit  of  denunciation  have  I  spoken 
of  our  economic  evils;  for  I  judge  no  man,  and 
I  count  no  man  guilty  above  myself.  Nor  do  I 
speak  in  behalf  of  one  class  against  another ; 
for  the  social  movement  is  not  a  class  move- 
ment, but  an  effort  of  the  whole  human  life  for 
spiritual  emancipation.  There  is  not  one  of  us, 
no  matter  how  rich,  no  matter  how  poor,  who 
does  not  yearn  for  liberty  to  live  the  brother- 
hood we  all  feel.  We  are  every  one  of  us,  with- 
out regard  to  place  or  possessions,  miserable  at 
heart  over  the  existing  order  of  things.  We 
know  that  it  does  not  represent  us  ;  that  it  is 
not  just  nor  noble ;  that  it  compels  us  to  deeds 
that  violate  our  manhood  and  desecrate  our 
life.  Then  let  us  meet  our  monstrous  wrongs 
as  brothers  and  not  as  enemies,  and  determine 
that  they  shall  come  to  an  end,  so  that  we  shall 
dare,  at  last,  to  look  God  and  one  another  in 
the  face,  unashamed,  unafraid,  and  free,  with 
the  justice  of  love  to  organize  the  world  in  an 
economic  order  that  shall  incarnate  the  peace 
of  good-will  among  men. 


LECTURE   IV, 

CHRISTIAN    DOCTRINE  AND   PRIVATE 
PROPERTY. 


He  showed  that  an  economical  question  is  invariably  hidden 
beneath  each  religious  evolution,  and  that,  upon  the  whole,  the  ever- 
lasting evil,  the  everlasting  struggle,  has  never  been  aught  but  one 
between  the  rich  and  the  poor.  Among  the  Jews,  when  their  nomadic 
life  was  over,  and  they  had  conquered  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  owner' 
ship  and  property  came  into  being,  a  class  warfare  at  once  broke  out. 
There  were  rich  and  there  were  poor ;  thence  arose  the  social  ques- 
tion. The  transition  had  been  sudden,  and  the  new  state  of  things 
so  rapidly  went  from  bad  to  worse  that  the  poor  suffered  keenly,  and 
protested  with  the  greater  violence  as  they  still  remembered  the  golden 
age  of  the  nomadic  life.  Until  the  time  of  Jesus  the  prophets  are 
but  rebels  who  surge  from  out  the  misery  of  the  people,  proclaim  its 
sufferings,  and  vent  their  wrath  upon  the  rich,  to  whom  they  prophesy 
every  evil  in  punishment  for  their  injustice  and  their  harshness. 
Jesus  himself  appears  as  the  claimant  of  the  rights  of  the  poor.  The 
prophets,  whether  socialists  or  anarchists,  had  preached  social  equal- 
ity, and  called  for  the  destruction  of  the  world  if  it  were  unjust- 
Jesus  likewise  brings  to  the  wretched  hatred  of  the  rich.  All  his 
teaching  threatens  wealth  and  property :  and  if  by  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  which  he  promised  one  were  to  understand  peace  and  frater- 
nity upon  this  earth,  there  would  only  be  a  question  of  returning  to  a 
life  of  pastoral  simplicity,  to  the  dream  of  the  Christian  community, 
such  as  after  him  would  seem  to  have  been  realized  by  his  disciples. 
During  the  first  three  centuries  each  church  was  an  experiment  in 
communism,  a  real  association  whose  members  possessed  all  in  com- 
mon—  wives  excepted.  This  is  shown  to  us  by  the  apologists  and 
early  fathers  of  the  church.  Christianity  was  then  but  the  religion 
of  the  humble  and  the  poor,  a  form  of  democracy,  of  socialism  strug- 
gling against  Roman  society.  —  Jimile  Zola. 


IV. 

CHRISTIAN    DOCTRINE   AND 
PRIVATE   PROPERTY. 

But  if  we  say,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  Bible  utterly  condemns 
all  violence,  revolt,  fierceness,  and  self-assertion,  then  we  may  safely 
say,  on  the  other  hand,  that  there  is  certainly  communism  in  the 
Bible.  The  truth  is,  the  Bible  enjoins  endless  self-sacrifice  all  round  ;  V 
and  to  any  one  who  has  grasped  this  idea,  the  superstitious  worship 
of  property,  the  reverent  devotedness  to  the  propertied  and  satisfied 
classes,  is  impossible.  —  Matthew  Arnold. 

The  common  ownership  of  natural  resources 
follows  a  clear  line  of  Christian  teaching  from 
the  beginning  of  that  teaching  with  Jesus 
Christ.  Nearly  all  his  statements  of  religious 
principles  are  in  terms  of  human  relations  ;  and 
his  idea  was  altogether  more  communistic  than 
we  care  to  discover.  Reduced  to  economic 
terms,  the  realization  of  his  ideal  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  could  mean  nothing  less  than  an 
all-inclusive,  non-exclusive  communism  of  oppor- 
tunity, use,  and  service.  It  may  be  a  debatable 
matter  whether  any  form  of  communism  is  prac- 
ticable ;  but  it  is  not  open  to  question  that 
ios 


106  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

Jesus  never  contemplated  anything  else  than 
an  organization  of  human  life  in  which  all  men 
should  work  together  for  the  common  good, 
and  each  have  according  to  his  needs  or  power 
to  use. 

The  teaching  of  Jesus  is  a  spiritual  evolution 
of  the  social  ideal  that  lay  at  the  heart  of  the 
Hebrew  Commonwealth  and  its  history.  His 
ideal  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  a  synthesis 
of  Biblical  political  and  social  philosophy.  In 
this  whole  body  of  literature  which  we  call  the 
Bible,  there  is  no  significant  message  that  does 
not  come  to  practical  human  equality  in  all  sorts 
of  resources,  if  the  message  be  carried  out  and 
applied.  As  Matthew  Arnold  has  said  :  "  If  we 
say,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  Bible  utterly  con- 
demns all  violence,  revolt,  fierceness,  and  self- 
assertion,  then  we  may  safely  say,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  there  is  certainly  communism  in  the 
Bible."  Or  take  the  way  the  prophets  and 
apostles  are  characterized  by  Renan :  "  The 
prophets  of  Israel  are  fiery  publicists  of  the  de- 
scription we  should  now  call  socialists  or  anar- 
chists. They  are  fanatical  in  their  demands  for 
social  justice,  and  proclaim  aloud  that,  if  the 
world  is  not  just,  nor  capable  of  becoming  just, 
it  were  better  it  were  destroyed  ;  a  most  false, 
yet  most  fecund  mode  of  viewing  the  matter,  for 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY.  107 

like  all  desperate  doctrines,  as,  for  instance, 
Russian  nihilism  at  the  present  day,  it  produces 
heroism  and  great  awakening  of  human  forces. 
The  founders  of  Christianity,  the  direct  contin- 
uers  of  the  prophets,  conclude  by  an  incessant 
invocation  of  the  end  of  the  world,  and  strange 
to  say,  they  really  do  change  it." 

No  man  can  read  the  Gospels  honestly  with- 
out seeing  that  Jesus  regarded  individual  wealth 
as  a  moral  fall,  and  as  social  violence.  He  be- 
lieved social  inequality  to  be  the  manifestation 
of  the  religious  apostasy  and  spiritual  disorder 
that  rooted  in  covetousness.  Though  he  knew 
not  our  economic  terms,  he  yet  taught  that  one 
could  enrich  himself  only  by  hardening  his  heart 
against  his  brothers.  When  he  declared  that 
it  was  hard  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  kingdom 
of  God,  it  is  clear  that  he  meant  that  it  was 
hard  for  him  to  yield  to  the  essential  thing  in 
his  case,  which  was  the  giving  up  of  his  prop- 
erty to  the  common  good  ;  because  he  was  not 
able  to  do  this,  the  rich  young  man  went  away 
sorrowful.  When  he  said  that  a  man  must  re- 
nounce all  he  had  to  become  his  disciple,  he 
was  not  speaking  vaguely ;  he  meant  exactly 
what  he  said.  "There  is,"  says  John  Brisben 
Walker,  "  no  escaping  the  severity  of  the  Sa- 
viour upon  the  matter  of  wealth  and  poverty. 


I08  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

Strange  to  say,  to  the  casual  reader  of  the 
sacred  Scriptures,  it  seems  the  one  subject 
upon  which  his  words  always  ring  with  a  terri- 
ble directness  against  the  trespasser.  The  re- 
pentant thief — the  outcast  who  turned  in  his 
misery  upon  the  cross  —  had  only  to  look  to  be 
forgiven.  The  sudden  anger  of  St.  Peter,  and 
his  unhappy  denials  of  his  Saviour,  were  made 
lio-ht  of.  Magdalen  had  but  to  fall  at  his  feet 
to  hear  her  pardon  pronounced.  But  these  rich, 
who  know  not  their  brothers,  how  relentlessly 
does  he  always  speak  to  them."  Jesus  could 
see  nothing  more  irreligious,  more  defiant  to- 
ward God  or  wicked  toward  man,  than  that  men 
should  use  superior  ability  as  a  mere  instrument 
for  exploiting  their  brothers,  making  human 
need  and  ignorance  their  prey.  From  his  point 
of  view,  the  power  to  serve  is  not  only  the 
sacredest  gift,  but  is  in  itself,  in  its  intrinsic 
worth,  the  highest  human  reward.  The  idea 
that  serving  power  is  something  to  be  rewarded 
by  things  other  than  itself,  something  to  be 
sold  and  paid  for  in  the  market,  was  to  him  a 
frightful  profanation  of  life.  The  harmony  of 
the  most  common  economic  and  social  facts 
with  the  highest  subjective  and  spiritual  ideals 
is  the  distinctive  ground  of  the  religion  of 
Jesus. 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY.  IO9 

Now  apostolic  Christianity  took  seriously  the 
economic  facts  of  the  spiritual  life.  Men  under- 
stood that,  in  becoming  Jesus'  disciples,  it  was 
incumbent  upon  them  to  surrender  private 
interests  to  the  brotherhood.  "It  is  beyond 
all  question,"  as  Canon  Gore  says,  that  the 
early  Christians  took  it  to  be  the  intention  of 
Christ  that  they  should  live  "by  a  certain 
moral  law,  which  put  the  sternest  restraints  on 
the  spirit  of  competition,  on  the  acquisition  of 
wealth,  on  selfish  aggrandizement."  "No  one," 
says  Mr.  Walker,  "  can  read  the  early  history 
of  the  church  and  doubt  that  the  spirit  of  the 
first  Christians  was  communistic.  Catholic 
writers  dwell  on  their  communism.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  about  these  early  conditions. 
The  words,  then  so  recently  from  the  lips  of 
the  Saviour,  were  construed  literally."  When 
the  Holy  Ghost  came  upon  the  apostolic 
fellowship,  "the  multitude  of  them  that  be- 
lieved were  of  one  heart  and  soul  :  and  not  one 
of  them  said  that  aught  of  the  things  he  pos- 
sessed was  his  own  ;  but  they  had  all  things 
common.  And  with  great  power  gave  the 
apostles  their  witness  of  the  resurrection"  of 
the  Lord  Jesus :  and  great  grace  was  upon 
them  all.  For  neither  was  there  among  them 
any    that    lacked  :    for   as  many   as   were  pos- 


IIO  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

sessors  of  houses  or  lands  sold  them,  and 
brought  the  prices  of  the  things  that  were  sold, 
and  laid  them  at  the  apostles'  feet  :  and  dis- 
tribution was  made  unto  each,  according  as 
any  one  had  need."  We  are  nearly  always  told 
that  the  early  Christians  of  Jerusalem  were 
reduced  to  poverty  because  of  their  com- 
munism ;  but  we  have  not  an  iota  of  evidence 
that  such  was  the  case.  In  fact,  the  historical 
evidence  is  quite  to  the  contrary.  The  siege 
of  Jerusalem  under  Titus  reduced  the  whole 
nation  to  such  poverty  that  mothers  ate  their 
babes.  In  that  awful  rebellion  and  national 
extinction,  the  Christian  communities  alone 
seem  to  have  fairly  survived.  In  appealing  to 
the  churches  for  mutual  help,  in  these  times  of 
peril  and  want,  Paul  lays  down  the  law  of  such 
help,  which  I  quote  from  the  Catholic  Bible  : 
"For  I  mean  not  that  others  should  be  eased 
and  you  burdened  ;  but  by  an  equality.  And 
again  in  the  present  time  let  your  abundance 
supply  their  want ;  that  their  abundance  may 
also  supply  your  want ;  that  there  may  be  an 
equality."  The  great  argument  of  the  apostle 
was  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which 
consisted  in  his  becoming  poor  for  our  sakes, 
he  being  rich  in  himself. 

Down  past  the  time  of  Augustine,  who  would 


PRIVA  TE  PROPERTY.  1 1  I 

admit  no  one  to  the  churchly  offices  save  on 
the  surrender  of  all  private  property,  the  com- 
munistic idea  largely  prevailed.  "We  must 
admit,"  says  Professor  Nitti,  in  his  great  work 
on  "Catholic  Socialism,"  "that  Christianity  was 
a  vast  economic  revolution,  more  than  anything 
else."  "The  early  fathers  of  the  church,"  he 
says,  "faithful  to  the  teachings  of  Christ,  pro- 
fessed thoroughly  communistic  theories.  They 
lived  among  communistic  surroundings,  and 
could  not  well  have  maintained  theories  con- 
trary to  those  held  by  Christ  and  the  apostles." 
Professor  Nitti  has  done  noble  service  in  collat- 
ing the  sayings  of  the  church  fathers  with 
regard  to  private  property.  "  Opulence,''  says 
Jerome,  "is  always  the  result  of  theft,  if  not 
committed  by  the  actual  possessor,  then  by  his 
predecessors."  "All  is  in  common  with  us 
except  women,"  says  Tertullian.  "  It  is  no 
great  thing,"  writes  Gregory  the  Great,  "not  to 
rob  others  of  their  belongings,  and  in  vain  do 
they  think  themselves  innocent  who  appropri- 
ate to  their  own  use  alone  those  goods  which 
God  gave  in  common  ;  by  not  giving  to  others 
that  which  they  themselves  receive,  they  be- 
come homicides  and  murderers,  inasmuch  as  in 
keeping  for  themselves  those  things  which 
would    have    alleviated    the    sufferings    of    the 


112  BETWEEN   CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

poor,  we  may  say  that  they  every  day  cause 
the  death  of  as  many  persons  as  they  might 
have  fed  and  did  not.  When,  therefore,  we 
offer  the  means  of  living  to  the  indigent,  we 
do  not  give  them  anything  of  ours,  but  that 
which  of  right  belongs  to  them.  It  is  less  a 
work  of  mercy  that  we  perform  than  the  pay- 
ment of  a  debt."  "It  was  not  until  the  thir- 
teenth century,"  says  Professor  Nitti,  in  con- 
cluding these  and  many  like  quotations,  "  when 
the  church  was  already  immensely  rich,  that 
ecclesiastical  writers  appeared  openly  maintain- 
ing the  right  of  property."  When  this  came 
to  pass,  "  the  church  was  not  only  obliged  to 
repudiate  its  original  teachings,  but  it  was 
forced,  after  a  long  struggle,  to  exclude  from 
the  fold  those  who  obstinately  maintained 
them."  Many  statements  and  sermons  might 
be  taken  from  the  church  fathers  to  verify  Pro- 
fessor Nitti's  position  ;  but  they  are  needless. 
The  quotations  he  has  gathered  are  fairly  typi- 
cal of  the  whole  body  of  patristic  teaching. 
It  all  comes  to  the  same  thing  :  that  com- 
munism and  equality  are  the  only  logical  and 
obedient  economic  expressions  of  our  Lord's 
teachings.  With  the  single  exception  of  Clem- 
ent of  Alexandria,  nothing  else  was  taught 
concerning  property   by   the  great    fathers   of 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY.  113 

theology  and  the  church.  But  I  can  make 
place  for  citing  only  three  of  these,  Chrysostom, 
Ambrose,  and  Augustine. 

The  struggle  of  Chrysostom  with  the  powers 
of  church  and  state,  at  Constantinople,  was 
purely  an  economic  conflict,  and  but  incident- 
ally a  theological  controversy.  The  golden- 
mouthed  preacher  insisted  on  "the  necessity 
of  restoring  at  all  costs  community  of  goods."  \J 
He  could  not  conceive  of  great  fortunes  except 
as  the  fruits  of  theft  and  crime,  of  monopoly  or 
usury.  "  Behold,"  he  writes,  "  the  idea  we 
should  have  of  the  rich  and  covetous  :  they  are 
truly  as  robbers,  who,  standing  in  the  public 
highways,  despoil  the  passers-by  ;  they  convert 
their  chambers  into  caverns,  in  which  they  bury 
the  goods  of  others."  "You  say  that  the  poor 
do  not  work,"  he  one  day  responds  to  some  ex- 
cuses of  the  rich,  "but  do  you  work  yourselves? 
Do  you  not  enjoy  in  idleness  the  goods  you  have 
unjustly  inherited?  Do  you  not  exhaust  others 
with  labor,  while  you  enjoy  in  indolence  the 
fruit  of  their  misery  ?  "  On  another  occasion, 
having  violently  censured  the  rich  citizens  of 
Constantinople,  he  exclaims  :  "  They  say  to  me, 
*  Wilt  thou  never  cease  from  speaking  ill  of  the 
rich  ?  Still  more  anathemas  against  the  rich  ! ' 
and  I  answer,  '  Still  your  hardness  towards  the 


114  BETWEEN'  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

poor!''  It  was  because  of  his  merciless  de- 
nunciations of  the  rich,  upon  every  occasion 
which  he  could  find  or  make,  that  Chrysostom 
was  finally  driven  from  the  city  to  his  last  exile 
and  death.  Once,  during  an  exile,  the  authori- 
ties sent  for  him  to  return  on  condition  that  he 
would  cease  to  stigmatize  the  rich.  His  reply 
was  to  the  effect  that  he  would  return  if  they 
wished  him  to  preach  the  gospel  of  the  Lord, 
but  that  in  so  doing  he  would  never  cease  to 
denounce  the  wealth  of  the  rich  as  the  robbery 
of  the  poor. 

The  majestic  Ambrose  was  the  greatest  states- 
man of  the  church  before  Hildebrand,  if  not 
the  greatest  statesman  who  has  made  the  church 
his  sphere  up  to  this  day.  He  was  himself  a 
Roman  patrician  of  the  highest  blood  and  dig- 
nity. Yet  no  man  ever  taught  so  explicitly 
that  the  common  ownership  of  natural  re- 
sources is  the  only  Christian  justice.  He 
sometimes  does  this  at  once  in  the  name  of 
Christ  and  in  the  terms  of  the  ancient  Roman 
law.  One  could  easily  imagine  that  he  gave 
Henry  George  and  Rousseau  their  theses. 
"The  soil,"  he  says,  "was  given  to  rich  and 
poor  in  common.  Wherefore,  oh  ye  rich!  do 
you  unjustly  claim  it  for  yourselves  alone?" 
"  Nature  grave  all  things  in  common  for  the  use 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY.  I  I  5 

of  all,  usurpation  created  private  right."  Com- 
pare this  with  Mr.  George  :  The  curse  of  pov- 
erty is  due  to  the  fact  "that,  impiously  violating 
the  benevolent  intentions  of  their  Creator,  men 
have  made  land  private  property,  and  thus  given 
into  the  exclusive  ownership  of  the  few  that 
provision  that  a  bountiful  Father  has  made  for 
all.  Any  other  answer  than  that,  no  matter 
how  it  may  be  shrouded  in  the  mere  forms  of 
religion,  is  practically  an  atheistical  answer." 
Or  compare  Ambrose  with  Rousseau :  "  The 
first  man  who,  having  fenced  off  a  piece  of 
ground,  could  think  of  saying,  'This  is  mine,' 
and  found  people  simple  enough  to  believe  him, 
was  the  real  founder  of  civil  society.  How 
many  crimes,  wars,  murders,  miseries,  and  hor- 
rors would  not  have  been  spared  to  the  human 
race  by  one  who,  plucking  up  the  stakes,  or 
filling  in  the  trench,  should  have  called  out 
to  his  fellows  :  '  Beware  of  listening  to  this  im- 
postor ;  you  are  undone  if  you  forget  that  the 
earth  belongs  to  no  one,  and  that  its  fruits  are 
for  all.'  "  To  the  rich,  against  whose  oppres- 
sions his  voice  was  constantly  raised,  Ambrose 
said:  "You  clothe  the  walls  of  your  houses  and 
leave  the  poor  unclad ;  the  naked  wail  at  your 
gates,  and  your  only  thought  is  of  the  marble 
with  which  you   shall  overlay  your  floors;  he 


Il6  BETWEEN   CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

begs  for  bread,  and  your  horse  has  a  golden  bit. 
Costly  apparel  delights  you,  while  others  lack 
food.  The  very  jewel  in  your  ring  would  pro- 
tect from  hunger  a  mass  of  people."  "When 
men  were  unjustly  persecuted,"  says  Dean  Far- 
rar,  "he  extended  to  them  the  rights  of  asylum. 
When  multitudes  were  taken  prisoners  in  the 
incessant  battles  against  rebels  and  invaders, 
he  unhesitatingly  melted  down  the  sacred  ves- 
sels to  purchase  their  ransom.  Nobody  spoke 
more  boldly  against  vice.  He  denounced  the 
custom  of  drinking  toasts,  and  put  down  the 
vice  of  revelling  on  the  feast  days  of  martyrs. 
He  rebuked  the  perfumed  and  luxurious  youths  ; 
the  women  who  reclined  on  silver  couches  and 
drank  from  jewelled  cups  ;  the  men  who  de- 
lighted in  porphyry  tables  and  gilded  fret-work, 
and  cared  more  for  their  hounds  and  horses 
than  for  their  fellow-Christians.  Nor  did  he 
less  faithfully  denounce  the  idle  multitude  who 
patronized  the  madness  of  the  circus  and  the 
vice  of  the  theatre." 

Augustine  anticipated  Cardinal  Manning  and 
Archbishop  Lynch  in  declaring  the  divine  and 
unlimited  right  of  human  need  ;  he  character- 
ized the  monopoly  which  limited  the  supply 
as  murder.  His  whole  philosophy  of  history 
pivoted   upon   the    doctrine    that    both    private 


PRIVA  TE    PROPER  TY.  I  1 7 

property  and  the  state  originated  in  sin.  "  God 
has  made  the  rich  and  the  poor  of  the  same 
clay,  and  one  earth  bears  them  both,"  he  says. 
"  'Tis  through  emperors  and  kings  of  the  world 
that  God  gives  the  human  law  of  the  human 
race.  Take  away  the  law  of  the  emperors  and 
who  will  dare  to  say  'This  villa  is  mine'?" 
Though  differing  totally  in  substance,  Augus- 
tine's doctrine  of  property  and  the  state  comes 
to  the  same  thing  as  the  philosophical  anar- 
chism of  Kropotkin  and  Bakunin  ;  it  lays  a  per- 
fect foundation  for  the  Christian  nihilism  of 
Tolstoi'.  The  best  summing  up  of  Augustine's 
doctrine  is  by  Professor  Nash,  in  his  "  Genesis 
of  the  Social  Conscience":  Property  "has  no 
ground  whatever  in  equity  as  distinguished  from 
positive  law.  In  true  humanity  it  lacks  all 
root.  To  sin  it  owes  its  origin  and  to  sin  its 
continuance.  Its  title-deeds  cannot  pass  mus- 
ter in  the  supreme  court  of  morality, — the 
monastery."  "  All  who  have  a  passion  for  good- 
ness," continues  Professor  Nash,  "find  no  stop- 
ping-place short  of  the  monastic  'counsels  of 
perfection.'  On  this  level  there  is  no  private 
property.  No  saint  can  own  his  farm.  In  the 
Pseudo-Isidore,  it  is  written  :  '  We  know  that 
you  are  not  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  hitherto 
the  principle  of  living  with  all  things  in  com- 


Il8  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

mon  has  been  in  vigorous  operation  among 
good  Christians,  and  is  still  so  by  the  grace  of 
God  ;  and  most  of  all  among  those  who  have 
been  chosen  to  the  lot  of  the  Lord,  that  is  to 
say,  the  clergy.'  " 

I  am  not  contending,  by  all  these  quotations, 
that  the  church  fathers  had  economic  knowl- 
edge or  authority.  It  is  not  with  unqualified 
approval  that  I  quote  their  hard  sayings,  or  that 
I  call  upon  them  as  witnesses  in  our  social 
crisis.  But  I  do  insist  that  we  must  account 
for  the  fact  that  for  centuries  it  was  taken  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  Christianity  meant  com- 
munism, when  actually  practised. 

It  is  to  the  monastery  we  must  turn  when 
the  question  of  communistic  practicability  is 
raised.  The  monastery  was  a  pure  communism, 
and  was  originally  a  pure  democracy.  "  A  prac- 
tical democracy,"  says  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs, 
"  existed  in  the  monasteries,  where  all  the  monks 
elected  the  abbot  whom  they  were  afterward  to 
obey,  and  where  the  distinctions  of  rank  pre- 
vailing in  the  world  had  entirely  disappeared, 
noble  and  vassal  working  together,  the  count  and 
the  ploughman  side  by  side.  This  was  a  fact 
fruitful  of  consequences.  Such  an  established, 
organized,  Christian  socialism  had  to  do  with 
all  history."     Within  its  walls  and  among  its 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY.  1 1 9 

members,  there  was  neither  wage  nor  price, 
neither  profit  nor  bargain.  Every  man  did  the 
thing  he  could  best  do,  and  had  free  supply  for 
every  recognized  need.  "  The  monks  who  built 
the  abbeys  of  Cluny  and  St.  Denis,"  says  Mr. 
Brooks  Adams,  in  his  great  work  on  "  The  Law 
of  Civilization  and  Decay,"  "  took  no  thought 
of  money,  or  it  regarded  them  not.  Sheltered 
by  their  convents,  their  livelihood  was  assured ; 
their  bread  and  their  robe  were  safe  ;  they 
pandered  to  no  market,  for  they  cared  for  no 
patron.  Their  art  was  not  a  chattel  to  be 
bought,  but  an  inspired  language  in  which  they 
communed  with  God,  or  taught  the  people,  and 
they  expressed  a  poetry  in  the  stones  they 
carved  which  far  transcended  words." 

With  enormous  exaggeration,  Protestant  his- 
torians and  sectarian  agitators  have  dwelt  upon 
the  corruption  of  the  monks.  Wide  and  deep 
corruptions  existed,  it  is  true  ;  but  they  came 
as  the  natural  fruit  of  the  great  endowments 
which  wealth  and  feudal  powers  brought  to  the 
monastery  in  later  times  ;  and  they  were  but 
incidental  in  a  system  which  was  the  channel 
through  which  came  about  all  that  is  worth 
having  in  modern  civilization.  Through  the 
monastery  the  Renaissance  and  Greek  democ- 
racy came  to  Europe.     Out  of  the  monastery 


120  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

rose  the  great  arts,  the  university,  the  cathe- 
dral, the  revivals  of  Francis  and  Bernard,  the 
Crusades,  and  finally  the  Reformation.  The 
monk  was  the  pioneer  of  industry  and  agricul- 
ture, as  well  as  of  learning  and  the  cross ;  it 
was  he  who  founded  cities  and  states  in  the 
forests,  among  the  barbarians  ;  it  was  he  who 
defended  the  weak  from  feudal  and  savage 
oppressors,  and  sought  to  diminish  the  suffer- 
ings due  to  the  wide  poverty  that  was  the  crea- 
tion of  feudal  wars  and  feudal  monopoly  of  the 
land.  "  The  monasteries,"  says  Professor  Mar- 
shall, "  were  the  homes  of  industry,  and  in  par- 
ticular of  the  scientific  treatment  of  agricul- 
ture ;  they  were  secure  colleges  for  the  learned, 
and  they  were  hospitals  and  alms-houses  for  the 
suffering.  The  church  acted  as  a  peace-maker 
in  great  matters  and  in  small  ;  the  festivals  and 
the  markets  held  under  its  authority  gave  free- 
dom and  safety  to  trade."  "  The  Benedictine 
monks,"  says  M.  Guizot,  "  were  the  agricultur- 
ists of  Europe  ;  they  cleared  it  on  a  large  scale, 
associating  agriculture  with  preaching."  "  We 
owe  the  agricultural  restoration  of  the  great 
part  of  Europe  to  the  monks,"  says  Mr.  Hal- 
lam.  "  They  found  a  swamp,"  says  Cardinal 
Newman,  "a  moor,  a  thicket,  a  rock,  and  they 
made  an   Eden  in  the  wilderness.      They  de- 


rRIVATR   PROPERTY.  121 

stroyed  snakes ;  they  extirpated  wild  cats, 
wolves,  boars,  bears ;  they  put  to  flight  or  they 
converted  rovers,  outlaws,  robbers.  The  gloom 
of  the  forest  departed,  and  the  sun,  for  the  first 
time  since  the  Deluge,  shone  upon  the  moist 
ground."  "  So  long  as  the  church  held  its  lands 
and  its  power,  permanent  pauperism  was  un- 
known," says  Mr.  Hyndman,  who  is  certainly  no 
friend  of  the  church.  "The  general  employ- 
ment," he  says,  "  which,  as  landlords  resident 
among  the  people,  they  afforded,  the  improve- 
ments of  the  farms  and  of  their  own  buildings 
which  they  carried  out,  the  excellent  work  in 
road-making  which  they  did — a  task  especially 
necessary  in  those  times  —  in  addition  to  their 
action  as  public  alms-givers,  teachers,  doctors, 
and  nurses,  show  what  useful  people  many  of 
these  much-abused  monks  and  nuns  really  were." 
"It  is  hard,"  says  Mr.  John  Fiske,  "  to  find 
words  to  express  the  debt  of  gratitude  which 
modern  civilization  owes  to  the  Catholic 
Church  ; "  and  this  applies  especially  to  the 
spiritual  chivalry  and  enterprise  which  went 
forth  from  the  monastery  to  subdue  and  organ- 
ize both  human  and  material  worlds.  The 
monks  aimed,  as  Professor  Harnack  has  said, 
at  nothing  less  than  "  a  Christian  life  of  entire 
Christendom."     They  set  the  example  and  laid 


122  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

the  basis,  the  world  over,  for  free  labor  and  a 
Christian  society. 

It  thus  turns  out  that  the  best  work  of  the 
world  has  been  done,  and  the  best  things  of  the 
past  produced,  by  communistic  institutions. 
For  that  matter,  the  best  things  in  our  modern 
life,  such  as  the  free  school,  are  the  working 
out  of  the  communistic  idea ;  and  only  the 
other  day,  one  of  the  greatest  American  law- 
yers, who  is  also  chief  attorney  for  a  most  pow- 
erful corporation,  specifically  arraigned  our 
public  school  system  on  the  ground  that  its 
continuation  would  destroy  the  existing  order 
of  things.  Through  ages  of  political  anarchy, 
the  monks  were  able  to  preserve  for  the  future 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  resources  of  the 
centuries,  to  give  refuge  to  the  robbed  and  the 
oppressed,  through  the  power  that  inhered  in 
their  communistic  order.  No  other  economic 
method  has  ever  proved  to  be  so  practicable 
and  successful  as  the  economic  method  of  the 
purely  communistic  monastery  ;  indeed,  the 
question  of  practicability  may  all  turn  out  to  be 
on  the  other  side.  It  is  certainly  a  universal 
question  to-day,  as  to  whether  the  private  own- 
ership of  resources  and  industry  is  likely  to 
prove  anything  but  impracticable  and  disas- 
trous. 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY.  1 23 

Of  supreme  significance,  at  this  point,  is  the 
religious  movement  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  — 
the  truest  knight  of  Christ  that  ever  drew  the 
sword  of  love  against  the  fortresses  of  oppres- 
sion and  strife.  He  aimed  at  nothing  less  than 
the  entire  social  regeneration  of  Europe,  begin- 
ning with  the  cities  and  castles  that  crowned 
his  Umbrian  hill-tops.  His  initiative  rooted  in 
the  idea  of  the  sacrifice  of  love  in  service  as 
universal  and  redemptive  law,  and  as  the  sole 
bond  of  political  and  social  unity.  To  this  end 
he  gathered  his  friars,  as  the  marshalled  hosts 
of  conquering  love.  He  organized  them,  as  M. 
Paul  Sabatier  has  pointed  out,  not  into  a  men- 
dicant order,  but  into  a  laboring  order.  The 
monks  were  to  work  together  for  the  common 
good,  reducing  their  necessities  to  a  minimum, 
in  order  that  each  might  become  a  living  evan- 
gel of  the  revolution  of  love.  The  prayer  of 
St.  Francis  was  that  he  might  be  denied  all 
privileges,  except  the  privilege  of  having  no 
privileges.  His  Third  Order  was  an  attempt  to 
extend  the  economic  system  or  communistic 
idea  of  the  monastery  so  as  to  take  in  the  family 
and  the  community.  "  The  enemy  of  the  soul 
for  him,"  says  his  great  biographer,  "as  for 
Jesus,  was  avarice,  understood  in  its  largest 
sense  —  that  is   to  say,   that    blindness   which 


124  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

constrains  men  to  consecrate  their  hearts  to  ma- 
terial preoccupations,  makes  them  the  slave  of 
a  few  pieces  of  gold  or  of  a  few  acres  of  land, 
renders  them  insensible  to  the  beauties  of  na- 
ture, and  deprives  them  of  infinite  joys  which 
they  alone  can  know  who  are  the  disciples  of 
poverty  and  love.  Whoever  was  free  at  heart 
from  all  material  servitude,  whoever  was  decided 
to  live  without  hoarding,  every  rich  man  who 
was  willing  to  labor  with  his  hands  and  loyally 
distribute  all  that  he  did  not  consume  in  order 
to  constitute  the  common  fund  which  St.  Fran- 
cis called  the  Lord's  table,  every  poor  man  who 
was  willing  to  work,  was  free  to  resort,  in  the 
strict  measure  of  his  wants,  to  this  table  of  the 
Lord  ;  these  were  at  that  time  true  Francis- 
cans." After  many  awkward  discussions  and 
entanglements,  finding  itself  unable  to  with- 
stand the  movement,  the  church  perverted  St. 
Francis's  original  idea  by  adopting  it,  and 
Christ's  sweetest  and  bravest  knight  died  of  a 
broken  heart.  But  even  in  its  perverted  chan- 
nels, the  initiative  of  Francis  was  the  real  re- 
naissance of  Christianity,  —  a  world  revolution 
that  is  scarcely  yet  fairly  under  way. 

Time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  the  communis- 
tic base  that  underlies  the  thought  and  words 
of  all  the  great  mystics  and  religious  teachers 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY.  12$ 

through  the  centuries  that  unite  the  miscalled 
Dark  Ages  with  the  present  time.  It  was  the 
conviction  of  Anselm  that  "  the  riches  of  the 
world  are  for  the  common  benefit  of  men,  as 
created  by  the  common  Father  of  all,  and  that 
by  natural  law  no  one  has  more  right  than  any 
other  to  any  possession."  According  to  the 
"  Theologia  Germanica,"  the  fall  of  man  was 
his  "setting  up  of  a  claim,  his  I  and  me  and 
mine,  these  were  his  going  astray,  and  his 
fall.  And  thus  it  is  to  this  day."  "What  else," 
continues  the  writer,  "did  Adam  do  but  this 
same  thing  ?  It  is  said,  it  was  because  Adam 
ate  the  apple  that  he  was  lost,  or  fell.  I  say,  it 
was  because  of  his  claiming  something  for  his 
own,  and  because  of  his  I,  mine,  and  me,  and  the 
like.  Had  he  eaten  seven  apples,  and  yet  never 
claimed  anything  for  his  own,  he  would  not 
have  fallen :  but  as  soon  as  he  called  something 
his  own,  he  fell,  and  would  have  fallen  if  he  had 
never  touched  an  apple."  Pascal  teaches  that 
the  institutions  of  state  and  property  rest  upon 
sheer  force ;  that  they  are  unjustifiable  to  rea- 
son, and  are  the  square  contradiction  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  that  they  are  due  to  the  fact  that  "  not 
being  able  to  make  strong  what  was  just,  men 
have  made  just  what  was  strong."  He  illus- 
trates: "'This  dog  belongs  to  me,'  said  these 


f 


126  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

poor  children  ;  '  that  place  in  the  sun  is  mine  ! ' 
Behold  the  beginning  and  the  image  of  all  usur- 
pation upon  earth."  Listen  to  the  preaching  of 
one  who  is  always  set  before  us  as  our  classic 
homiletic  model,  whom  Matthew  Arnold  calls 
the  "  best  and  soundest  moralist  "  of  the  English 
church,  "  a  man  sober-minded,  weighty,  es- 
teemed ;  "  it  is  Barrow,  in  his  famous  Hospital 
Sermon  of  1671,  and  that  in  the  face  of  the 
wild  orgies  of  the  Restoration  :  "  Inequality  and 
private  interest  in  things  (together  with  sick- 
ness and  pains,  together  with  all  other  infelici- 
ties and  inconveniences)  were  the  by-blows  of 
our  guilt  ;  sin  introduced  these  degrees  and  dis- 
tances ;  it  devised  the  names  of  rich  and  poor ; 
it  begot  those  ingrossings  and  inclosures  of 
things ;  it  forged  those  two  small  pestilent 
words,  meum  and  tuum,  which  have  engendered 
so  much  strife  among  men,  and  created  so 
much  mischief  in  the  world."  I  might  quote 
Bossuet  and  many  others  to  the  same  effect,  but 
I  must  hasten  to  briefly  notice  the  teachings  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Reformation. 

Professor  Nitti,  himself  an  Italian  Catholic, 
credits  Wyckliffe,  Huss,  Jean  Petit,  and  the 
Anabaptists  with  "  making  vain  efforts  to  re- 
store the  theories  of  the  gospel  regarding  prop- 
erty."     "If   their   disputes,"   he    says,    "were 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY.  I2"J 

almost  always  of  a  religious  nature,  they  never- 
theless invariably  bore  an  economic  character 
as  well.  It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  during 
the  Middle  Ages  all  questions  were  discussed 
under  a  theological  aspect."  In  the  Introduc- 
tion to  "  A  Contemporary  Narrative  of  the  Pro- 
ceedings against  Dame  Alice  Kyteler,"  edited 
by  Thomas  Wright,  and  printed  in  London  for 
the  Camden  Society  in  1843,  appears  the  fol- 
lowing :  "  The  earliest  instances  of  the  direct 
combination  of  the  charges  of  heresy  and  sor- 
cery is  presented  by  the  sect  of  the  Waldenses, 
or  Vaudois.  A  singular  account  of  the  origin 
of  this  sect  is  given  in  an  early  anonymous 
tract  on  the  history  of  the  Carthusian  Order, 
where  it  is  stated  that  a  Vaudois,  who  lived  at 
Lyons,  following  the  letter  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, quitted  all  his  riches  to  embrace  volun- 
tary poverty."  Hence  he  and  his  followers 
were  charged  with  having  entered  into  league 
with  the  devil. 

Although  the  Waldenses  and  some  of  the 
Anabaptists  lived  in  a  beautiful  communistic 
faith  and  practice,  it  would  not  be  fair  to  classify 
the  reformers  of  the  Continent  with  the  church 
fathers  in  their  teachings  concerning  property 
or  equality  ;  they  were  not  communists  in  any 
authorized  use  of  that  term.     They  were,  how- 


128  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

ever,  social  and  political  idealists  of  the  sternest 
type  ;  idealists  who  believed  that  the  actual 
facts  of  life  should  be  made  to  express  the  law 
and  equality  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Though 
favoring  too  much  the  privileged  classes,  and 
betraying  his  own  cause  in  his  attitude  towards 
the  Peasants'  War,  Martin  Luther  yet  preached 
against  wealth  in  terms  that  would  not  be  tol- 
erated  in  any  representative  Protestant  pulpit 
in  America.  The  bulk  of  Calvin's  writings  lie 
buried  in  the  archives  of  the  University  of 
Geneva,  having  never  been  published  ;  but  M. 
Eugene  Choisy,  of  the  theological  faculty  of  the 
University,  has  lately  written  a  scholarly  book 
of  profound  historical  interest,  entitled  "  La 
Theocratie  a.  Geneve  au  temps  de  Calvin,"  in 
which  he  shows  that  Calvin's  theology  was  but 
fundamental  to  his  ideal  of  a  social  order  that 
should  incarnate  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Zwingli  was  a  social  reformer  above  all  else, 
and  was  the  initiator  of  much  of  the  subsequent 
social  development  of  Switzerland.  Critical  in- 
vestigators point  to  John  Huss's  defence  of  the 
peasants  against  their  lords  as  the  real  cause 
of  his  martyrdom. 

Crossing  into  Scotland,  we  find  that  John 
Knox  "  utterly  damned  in  Christ's  servants  " 
the  careful  solicitude  of  money.      With   all  the 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY.  1 29 

vehemence  of  his  sweet  yet  terrible  nature,  he 
condemned  interest,  low  wages,  and  the  taking 
advantage  of  the  necessity  of  the  poor.  The 
First  Book  of  Discipline,  which  is  called  "  the 
most  interesting  document  in  Reformation  lit- 
erature," is  chiefly  the  work  of  Knox.  "  The 
book  simply  tingles,"  as  Dr.  Glasse  expresses 
it,  "with  contempt  for  superstition,  and  with 
indignation  against  oppression."  As  to  the 
part  of  the  Scotch  reformers  on  social  and 
political  questions,  "there  is  simply  no  ambi- 
guity," says  Dr.  Glasse ;  "  they  occupied  an  ex- 
ceptionally advanced  position,  and  endeavored 
to  harmonize  their  institutions  with  their  opin- 
ions." And  there  would  be  no  ambiguity  now, 
if  we  could  take  as  representative  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland  the  address  given,  at  the  close  of 
the  General  Assembly  in  1891,  by  its  modera- 
tor, Dr.  Macgregor.  "  Ought  we  not,"  he  said,  ^s' 
"to  keep  more  prominently  before  ourselves, 
and  so  before  our  people,  that  Christianity  is 
the  highest  and  purest  socialism  :  that  the  Bible 
is  the  great  text-book  of  socialism  :  that  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  greatest  socialist  who  ever  trod 
this  lower  world  —  himself  a  poor  hard-working 
man  —  that  he  was  the  healer  of  all  diseases, 
the  Saviour  of  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul  : 
and  that  what  he  was  his  church  ought  to  be  — 


I30  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

the  implacable  foe  of  injustice,  oppression,  and 
wrong,  come  from  what  quarter  they  may  ?  " 

But  it  is  when  we  turn  to  Wyckliffe  and  the 
Lollards  that  we  find  the  most  explicit  commu- 
nism taught  as  the  very  essence  of  the  gospel 
and  freedom  of  the  New  Testament.  Wyck- 
liffe, even  more  specifically  and  severely  than 
Augustine,  taught  that  private  property  origi- 
nated in  sin.  John  Richard  Green  tells  how 
the  Lollards  were  put  to  death,  not  for  religious 
reasons  so  much  as  for  reasons  that  were,  in 
the  last  analysis,  economic.  The  preparer  of 
Wyckliffe's  way  was  John  Ball,  known  as  "the 
mad  priest  of  Kent,"  in  whose  preaching  Mr. 
Green  says  "  that  England  first  listened  to  the 
declaration  of  the  natural  equality  of  the  rights 
of  man."  "  By  what  right  are  these  lords 
greater  than  we  ? "  asks  John  Ball.  "  Good  peo- 
ple," he  cries,  "things  will  never  be  right  in 
England  so  long  as  goods  be  not  in  common. 
If  we  all  came  of  the  same  father  and  mother, 
of  Adam  and  Eve,  how  can  they  say  or  prove 
that  they  are  better  than  we,  if  it  be  not  that 
they  make  us  gain  for  them  by  our  toil  what 
they  spend  in  their  pride  ?  They  are  clothed 
in  their  velvet,  and  are  warm  in  their  furs  and 
their  ermines,  while  we  are  covered  with  rags. 
They  have  wine  and  spices  and  fair  bread  ;  and 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY.  131 

we  have  oat-cake  and  straw,  and  water  to  drink. 
They  have  leisure  and  fine  houses ;  we  have 
pain  and  labor,  the  rain  and  the  winds  in  the 
fields.  And  yet  it  is  of  us  and  our  toil  that 
these  men  hold  their  state."  The  usual  irony 
of  history  —  the  irony  of  treason,  murder,  and 
despotism  which  the  economic  spirit  always 
visits  upon  the  people  and  their  ideals  and 
idealists  —  is  seen  in  the  political  establish- 
ment of  the  Reformation  by  the  miserable 
Henry  VIII.  and  his  court  of  basest  plunderers, 
under  whom  the  Reformation  was  converted 
into  a  regime  of  the  most  wholesale  capitalistic 
robbery  in  the  history  of  nations.  The  Angli- 
can Church  became,  under  him,  as  it  largely 
remains  to  this  day,  a  sort  of  an  ecclesiastical 
fiunkyism  —  a  system  of  political  retainers,  a 
police  vassalage,  to  the  capitalistic  landlords. 
It  is  perhaps  this  fact  that  moves  an  able  writer, 
speaking  from  an  academic  point  of  view,  to 
say  that  the  faith  of  the  Church  of  England 
varies  with  "  the  exigencies  of  real  estate." 
The  revolt  of  the  people,  and  of  the  reformers 
who  inherited  the  spirit  of  Wyckliffe,  took  the 
form  of  Puritanism,  which  was  already  ominous 
in  Henry's  time.  These  early  Puritans  were 
known  as  "gospellers."  "It  is  reported,"  says 
the  ever   changeable  Cranmer,  "  that  there  be 


132  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

many  among  these  unlawful  assemblies  that 
pretend  knowledge  of  the  gospel,  and  will  needs 
be  called  gospellers."  "  I  will  go  further,"  he 
continues,  "  to  speak  somewhat  of  the  great 
hatred  which  divers  of  these  seditious  persons 
do  bear  against  the  gentlemen  ;  which  hatred  in 
many  is  so  outrageous,  that  they  desire  nothing 
more  than  the  spoil,  ruin,  and  destruction  of 
them  that  be  rich  and  wealthy."  But  the  in- 
herent nobility  of  Cranmer's  sympathies  could 
not  always  be  suppressed  in  the  interests  of  his 
masters,  as  his  brave  death  afterwards  proved  ; 
and  in  this  same  sermon,  in  which  the  "gos- 
pellers "  are  set  forth  as  the  despoilers  of  the 
wealthy,  he  also  says  :  "  And  although  here  I 
seem  only  to  speak  against  these  unlawful  as- 
semblers, yet  I  cannot  allow  those,  but  I  must 
needs  threaten  everlasting  damnation  unto  them, 
whether  they  be  gentlemen  or  whatsoever  they 
be,  which  never  cease  to  purchase  and  join 
house  to  house,  and  land  to  land,  as  though 
they  alone  ought  to  possess  and  inhabit  the 
earth."  Even  down  to  the  time  of  the  Puritan 
exodus  to  New  England,  though  many  Puritans 
were  rich,  economic  inequality  was  more  or  less 
outrageous  to  the  deeper  Puritan  religious  sense. 
John  Winthrop's  letters  show  that  economic 
reasons  had  much  to  do  with  his  migration ;  he 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY.  1 33 

protested  against  the  profanity  of  the  talk  of 
over-population,  even  then  beginning,  and  which 
he  declared  would  not  be  heard  "  if  things  were 
right."  And  it  was  among  the  hard-pressed 
and  impoverished  yeomanry  that  Pastor  Robin- 
son gathered  the  Mayflower  seed  of  a  great 
nation  yet  to  be  born. 

The  finest  elements  of  the  Reformation  doc- 
trines were  gathered  into  the  Society  of  Friends, 
or  Quakers ;  and  from  them  come  the  deepest 
and  most  wide-reaching  utterances  of  spiritual 
truth  in  social  terms,  from  the  days  of  George 
Fox  down  to  the  clays  of  Barnabas  Hobbs.  The 
Quakers  were  not  communists  ;  but  they  were 
most  devout  believers  in  an  order  of  life  that 
should  express,  in  profoundest  social  realism, 
the  brotherly  love  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  glory 
of  their  teaching  appears  in  "  The  Journal  of 
John  Woolman,"  which  stands  beside  Augus- 
tine's "Confessions"  and  Amiel's  "Journal," 
as  one  of  the  three  greatest  religious  and  lite- 
rary expressions  of  its  kind.  John  Woolman 
always  had  before  him  the  "  prospect  of  one 
common  interest  from  which  our  own  is  insep- 
arable, so  that  to  turn  all  we  possess  into  the 
channel  of  universal  love  becomes  the  business 
of  our  lives."  "  When  house  is  joined  to  house," 
he  said,  in  a  tract  to  the  rich,  "  and  field  laid  to 


134  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

field,  until  there  is  no  place,  and  the  poor  are 
thereby  straitened,  though  this  is  clone  by  bar- 
gain and  purchase,  yet  so  far  as  it  stands  dis- 
tinguished from  universal  love,  so  far  that  woe 
predicted  by  the  prophet  will  accompany  their 
proceedings.  As  he  who  first  founded  the  earth 
was  then  the  true  proprietor  of  it,  so  he  still  re- 
mains ;  and  though  he  hath  given  it  to  the  chil- 
dren of  men,  so  that  multitudes  of  people  have 
had  their  sustenance  from  it  while  they  contin- 
ued here,  yet  he  hath  never  alienated  it,  but  his 
right  is  as  good  as  at  first ;  nor  can  any  apply 
the  increase  of  their  possessions  contrary  to 
universal  love,  nor  dispose  of  lands  in  a  way 
which  they  know  tends  to  exalt  some  by  op- 
pressing others,  without  being  justly  chargeable 
with  usurpation." 

Here  my  citations  must  end.  I  have  called 
the  noblest  elect  from  a  great  cloud  of  witnesses 
to  testify  whether  there  be  a  Christian  doctrine 
of  property  that  we  can  trace,  in  any  clear  line 
of  development,  from  Christ  to  the  establish- 
ment of  Protestantism.  In  order  that  I  might 
not  seem  to  be  reading  into  their  teachings  any 
notions  of  my  own,  I  have  let  these  witnesses 
speak  in  their  own  words.  In  all  that  I  have 
cited  from  them,  I  have  tried  to  take  such  ex- 
pressions as  would  fairly  represent  their  faith 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY.  1 35 

and  thought.  I  do  not  want  to  claim  for  them 
foreknowledge  or  undue  economic  authority. 
But  I  do  want  us  to  let  their  consistency  with 
each  other,  their  common  interpretation  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  in  economic  terms,  have  its 
full  weight  with  us,  especially  those  of  us  who 
claim  to  be  of  Christ's  household  of  faith. 

The  testimony  of  these  witnesses  agrees  upon 
a  fact  of  wonderful  and  imperative  significance  : 
that  what  we  call  the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
when  genuinely  experienced  by  a  religious 
group,  immediately  manifests  itself  in  the 
reaching  after  economic  brotherhood.  The  ex- 
perience of  the  first  Christians,  told  in  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  instead  of  being  a  singular  ex- 
perience, about  which  the  less  said  the  better, 
is  precisely  what  occurs  whenever  Christian 
groups  return  to  apostolic  sources,  to  move  upon 
the  world  with  early  Christian  feeling  and  will. 
The  apostolic  succession  is  disclosed  in  the 
economic  communion  of  Christian  springtimes. 
The  nearer  men  approach  to  being  of  one  mind 
with  God,  the  more  impossible  it  becomes  to 
hold  anything  as  their  own.  When  Christian 
experience  becomes  elemental,  individual  own- 
ership becomes  sacrilegious  ;  it  becomes  mur- 
derous, and  behind  it  the  shadow  of  Cain  grows 
dark.     The  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  keeps 


136  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

step  with  the  human  reaching  after  economic 
brotherhood,  without  which  there  can  be  no 
real  spiritual  brotherhood.  There  is  no  true 
communion  of  saints  apart  from  the  communion 
of  property. 

The  undeviating  hostility  of  Christ  and  his 
witnesses  to  individual  wealth  cannot  be  evaded 
by  following  John  Wesley's  immoral  advice  to 
make  all  one  can  and  then  give  all  one  can. 
The  philanthropy  of  economic  extortion  is  the 
greatest  immediate  menace  to  religion  and  so- 
cial progress.  The  gifts  that  come  not  from 
wilful  extortion,  but  from  as  clean  hands  as  the 
system  of  things  will  suffer  any  man  to  have, 
are  apt  to  be  even  more  misleading  than  the 
benevolence  of  avarice,  because  they  seem  to 
justify  and  make  Christian  what  is  really  anti- 
Christ.  Let  us  honor  such  contributions  as 
they  deserve  to  be  honored,  or  concede  the  eco- 
nomic and  historical  necessity  of  individual 
wealth  in  the  social  evolution  ;  but  let  us  not 
deceive  ourselves,  and  become  false  teachers  to 
the  people,  by  speaking  of  such  wealth  as  Chris- 
tian. Wealth  is  a  power  in  the  world,  and  often 
a  power  for  good,  while  a  rich  man  may  be  very 
useful  and  generous,  and  his  motives  noble ; 
but,  however  religious  and  philanthropic  he  be, 
the  rich  man   stands   in  the  antithesis   of  the 


PRIVATE    PROPERTY.  1 37 

Christian  attitude  towards  the  world.  We  can- 
not honestly  imagine  one  in  Christ's  state  of 
mind,  one  feeling  as  Christ  felt,  one  coming  at 
the  world  from  his  point  of  view,  giving  himself 
to  acquiring  individual  wealth.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, a  rich  Christian  is  a  contradiction  of  terms. 
This  is  a  hard  saying,  and  it  places  every  one 
of  us  in  positions  of  dreadful  inconsistency  and 
difficulty;  but  it  is  the  bald,  naked  reality  of 
Jesus'  teaching.  Let  us  confess  that  we  are  all 
alike  guilty;  that  none  of  us  are  really  Chris- 
tian, if  it  comes  to  this ;  but  let  us  be  men 
enough  to  look  the  truth  straight  in  the  face. 
As  Charles  Kingsley  makes  one  of  his  charac- 
ters say,  the  worm  that  dieth  not  and  the  fire 
that  is  not  quenched  are  a  great  blessing,  if  one 
may  only  know  the  truth  by  them  at  last.  The 
shame  and  sorrow  that  the  truth  brings,  I  must 
face  with  you  ;  for  none  are  guiltier  for  the  ex- 
isting order  of  things  than  those  of  us  who  teach 
in  colleges  endowed  by  individual  wealth. 

Of  course,  one  should  not  throw  away,  nor 
destroy,  nor  desecrate  any  property  that  is  in 
his  hands.  He  ought  not  and  cannot  individu- 
ally extricate  himself  from  the  system  that  now 
exists.  But  the  very  least  that  a  Christian  can 
do,  in  the  existing  order,  is  to  administer  what 
he  possesses  for  the  common  good,  in  the  most 


138  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

literal  sense  of  the  term.  A  man  cannot  be 
Christian  without  being  practically  communis- 
tic ;  as  a  possessor  of  property,  he  is  simply  a 
steward  having  in  trust  what  belongs  to  others. 
With  this,  he  must  exhaust  his  possibilities  in 
changing  the  system  from  one  of  private  owner- 
ship and  competition  into  the  common  owner- 
ship and  co-operative  service  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Sometimes,  I  think  that  a  single  man 
of  great  economic  power,  accepting  such  a  stew- 
ardship, with  the  heart  of  Christ  in  him,  could 
change  the  world. 

The  question  as  to  whether  economic  brother- 
hood is  practicable  is  a  question  of  whether 
Christianity  is  practicable.  If  Jesus  dwelt  at 
the  heart  of  God,  and  knew  the  law  and  secret 
of  the  universe,  it  is  not  worth  while  trying 
to  establish  society  on  any  other  basis  than 
that  of  the  universal  communism  of  the  Father 
who  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and 
the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  un- 
just;  the  Father  who,  when  his  children  had 
wasted  the  abundant  resources  of  life  which 
he  had  already  given  them,  redeemed  them  by 
giving  them  more  resources.  Before  we  dis- 
miss such  a  social  basis  as  a  dream,  let  us  well 
consider  our  free  schools,  the  free  street  rail- 
ways in  the  Australian  city,  the  free  highways 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY.  1 39 

unto  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  many  other 
initiatives  in  the  common  life  of  to-day,  which 
indicate  that  we  are  in  the  beginnings  of  a  tre- 
mendous change  upward  into  communism  which 
Jesus  disclosed  as  universal  life  and  order. 

In  the  fulness  of  its  times,  we  shall  have 
a  new  Christian  synthesis  upon  which  to  base 
the  religious  movement  which  the  social  spirit 
seeks,  and  it  will  guide  society  through  storm 
and  change.  The  details  of  that  synthesis  do 
not  yet  appear  ;  but  in  the  outline  emerging 
from  the  confusion  of  our  faith,  we  may  behold 
an  economic  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It  will 
so  state  the  facts  and  forces  which  are  the  sum 
of  Jesus'  idea,  in  such  clear  terms  of  present 
social  need,  as  to  afford  a  definite,  tangible, 
working  programme  of  social  faith.  It  comes, 
after  the  long  winter  of  apostolic  faith,  as  a 
new  religion  springing  up  from  the  seed  of 
Christ  in  the  human  soil.  It  promises  a  faith 
for  which  men  will  once  more  be  ready  to  live 
or  die  with  equal  joy.  It  will  be,  as  was  prophe- 
sied by  the  last  words  of  a  beloved  teacher,  Dr. 
Edwin  Hatch,  "  a  Christianity  which  is  not  new 
but  old,  which  is  not  old  but  new,  a  Christianity 
in  which  the  moral  and  spiritual  elements  will 
again  hold  their  place,  in  which  men  will  be 
bound  together  by  the  bond  of  mutual  service, 


V 


14O  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

which  is  the  bond  of  the  sons  of  God,  a  Chris- 
tianity which  will  actually  realize  the  brother- 
hood of  men,  the  ideal  of  its  first  Christian 
communities." 

The  original  idea  of  Jesus,  once  out  in  the 
social  open,  as  a  mode  and  economy  of  life,  to 
be  seen  as  it  humanly  is,  will  sweep  the  world. 
His  early  standard,  once  lifted  amidst  the  per- 
plexity and  strife,  and  millions  will  rally  to  it 
as  if  on  wings,  not  one  of  whom  can  be  changed 
by  our  system  of  religion.  His  kingdom  of 
heaven  once  more  at  hand,  and  the  Christian 
conscience  that  overran  the  Roman  empire,  that 
wrought  the  spiritual  chivalry  of  Francis  Xavier 
and  Loyola,  that  went  crusading  at  the  call  of 
Hermit  Peter  and  Abbot  Bernard,  that  endured 
Spanish  rack  and  fire  and  English  gallows  and 
dungeons,  that  crossed  winter  seas  to  found 
Pilgrim  homes  and  build  Puritan  states,  will 
arise  in  a  messianic  passion  vaster  than  any 
summoned  to  change  the  world  by  crises  past, 
and  our  economic  problem  will  dissolve  away  in 
its  fervent  heat,  to  disclose  the  friendly  stars 
of  the  new  heaven  lighting  the  new  earth  with 
the  everlasting  truth  that  love  is  law. 


LECTURE  V. 

THE   CONFLICT   OF   CHRIST   WITH 
CIVILIZATION. 


Hail,  spirit  of  revolt,  thou  spirit  of  life, 

Child  of  the  ideal,  daughter  of  the  far-away  truth  ! 

Without  thee  the  nations  drag  on  in  a  living  death  ; 

Without  thee  is  stagnation  and  arrested  growth ; 

Without   thee   Europe   and   America  would   be  sunk  in  China's 

lethargy, 
Smothered  in  the  past,  having  no  horizon  but  the  actual. 

Hail,  spirit  of  revolt !     Thou  spirit  of  life, 

Child  of  eternal  love  — 

Love,  rebelling  against  lovelessness  —  life  rebelling  against  death  ; 

Rise  at  last  to  the  full  measure  of  thy  birthright, 

Spurn  the  puny  weapons  of  hate  and  oppression. 

Fix  rather  thy  calm,  burning,  protesting  eyes  on  all  the  myriad 

shams  of  man  and  they  will  fade  away  in  thinnest  air. 
Gaze  upon  thy  gainsayers  until  they  see  and  feel  the  truth  and  love 

that  begat  and  bore  thee. 

Thus  and  thus  only  give  form  and  body  to  thy  noblest  aspirations. 

And  we  shall  then  see  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven 

God's  ever-living,  growing,  ripening  will. 

Ernest  H.  Crosby. 


V. 

THE    CONFLICT    OF   CHRIST   WITH 
CIVILIZATION. 

The  chief  priests  therefore  and  the  Pharisees  gathered  a  council, 
and  said,  What  do  we  ?  for  this  man  doeth  many  signs.  If  we  let 
him  thus  alone,  all  men  will  believe  on  him :  and  the  Romans  will 
come  and  take  away  both  our  place  and  our  nation.  But  a  certain 
one  of  them,  Caiaphas,  being  high  priest  that  year,  said  unto  them, 
Ye  know  nothing  at  all,  nor  do  ye  take  account  that  it  is  expedient 
for  you  that  one  man  should  die  for  the  people,  and  that  the  whole 
nation  perish  not.  —  John  xi.  47-50. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  Jesus  had 
nothing  to  do  with  institutions  or  with  politics  ; 
that  he  went  about  appealing  to  individuals  to 
"be  saved."  We  have  a  fatal  way  of  viewing 
Jesus  apart  from  his  history  and  social  perspec- 
tive, apart  from  the  human  facts  which  form 
the  setting  of  his  career.  "  Theological  writers 
have  not,"  says  Dr.  Baring-Gould,  "laid  suffi- 
cient stress  on  the  great  social  revulsion  with  / 
which  the  Jewish  world  was  threatened  by  the 
teaching  of  Christ."  "  The  public  to  whom 
Christ  appealed  has  not  been  adequately  con- 
sidered," he  continues,  "  nor  has  it  been  shown 
143 


144         BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

how  large  it  was,  how  uneasy  was  its  posi- 
tion." 

It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  Jesus  was  put  to 
death  for  going  about  healing  sick  people  and 
appealing  to  individuals  to  "be  saved,"  or  to 
"  be  good,"  as  we  understand  these  terms.  He 
was  crucified  for  disturbing  the  existing  na- 
tional order  of  things  ;  crucified  as  a  national 
menace,  because  he  was  aiming  at  the  wrong  at 
the  heart  of  the  nation.  His  avowed  purpose 
was  to  make  the  Jewish  people  a  messianic  and 
redemptive  nation  to  the  world.  When  he  was 
rejected,  it  was  a  governmental  as  well  as  an 
ecclesiastical  rejection.  His  death  was  brought 
about  by  the  politicians,  who  were  also  the 
priests,  or  belonged  to  the  priestly  party.  The 
chief  actors  in  the  drama  of  the  crucifixion 
were  such  as  we  call  the  "good  people,"  or 
"judiciously  progressive,"  whose  plans  Jesus 
spoiled,  and  to  whom  he  seemed  altogether 
unamenable  to  reason. 

More  clearly  than  Renan  or  any  of  the  Con- 
tinental critics,  Principal  Fairbairn  has  ana- 
lyzed and  set  forth  the  wholly  political  nature 
of  Jesus'  trial  and  death.  But  there  is  a  fact 
of  greatest  significance,  which  the  critics  seem 
to  me  to  have  scarcely  touched.  It  is  the  fact 
that    the    four   extremely   antagonistic    parties 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZATION.    1 45 

concerned  in  Jewish  politics — parties  which 
had  never  been  able  to  unite  on  anything  else 
—  found  a  meeting-ground  and  common  inte- 
rest in  the  putting  to  death  of  Jesus.  There 
were  the  Pharisees,  or  Puritan  party ;  there 
were  the  Sadducees,  or  party  of  the  national 
aristocracy  ;  there  were  the  Herodians,  or  party 
of  the  existing  and  usurping  dynasty ;  there 
were  the  Romans,  interested  in  maintaining 
their  conquest,  and  in  subjecting  all  parties  to 
the  perpetuation  of  their  power.  These  parties 
watched  each  other  with  bitterest  hatred,  and 
day  and  night  plotted  for  each  other's  destruc- 
tion. Yet  each  party  believed  itself  driven  by 
self-interest  to  destroy  Jesus.  All  parties  alike, 
whether  social  or  religious,  economic  or  polit- 
ical, agreed  that  there  was  no  safety  for  their 
interests  so  long  as  Jesus  was  left  alive.  What 
Principal  Fairbairn  says  of  the  Sadducees,  in 
their  attitude  towards  Jesus,  can  be  said  of  the 
three  other  parties  as  well :  "They  had  no  con- 
cern with  his  claims,  only  with  their  own 
safety.  They  knew  him  at  once  as  the  enemy 
of  their  order." 

But  we  are  not  dependent  upon  the  critics. 
We  have  only  to  read  the  Gospels,  with  even  a 
little  historic  sense,  to  see  that  the  career  of 
Jesus  was  as  certainly  political,  in  relation  to 


146  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

his  times  and  nation,  as  the  career  of  Joseph 
Mazzini  in  Italy,  or  that  of  Joan  of  Arc  in 
France.  His  words  reveal  him  in  closest  touch 
with  the  political  situation  and  the  economic 
and  social  facts  of  his  day.  He  planted  his 
feet  amidst  the  actual  conditions  and  problems 
of  Jerusalem,  spending  a  large  part  of  his  min- 
istry there  in  vain  before  he  turned  into  Gal- 
ilee. His  hands  were  always  in  the  human 
clay,  and  he  went  about  his  work  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  complications  and  forces  with  which 
he  had  to  deal.  He  was  no  pietist  or  mere 
dreamer,  but  a  re-maker  of  men  and  of  the 
conditions  that  make  men.  The  first  year  of 
his  ministry  was  spent  in  trying  to  get  some 
sort  of  a  national  recognition.  We  must  believe 
that  he  was  sincere,  not  making  believe  or  act- 
ing, when  he  sought  to  gain  acceptance  at  the 
hands  of  the  rulers  of  Jerusalem  ;  that  he  was 
honest  in  offering  himself  to  them  as  their 
King  and  national  Messiah.  Nothing  more 
truly  lays  bare  his  heart  than  the  cry,  "  O 
Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,"  which  went  forth  from 
the  baffled  patriot,  on  the  slopes  of  Olivet,  to 
the  beloved  capital  of  his  doomed  nation. 

There  is  one  instance  of  Jesus'  political 
action  which  has  been  a  subject  of  much  dis- 
pute.    According  to  John,  the  first  public  act 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZA  TION.    1 47 

of  his  ministry  was  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  and 
clean  out  the  Capitol.  Whatever  attitude  we 
take  towards  this  action,  whether  we  place  it  at 
the  beginning  or  the  end  of  Jesus'  ministry,  it 
has  a  significance  which  we  have  too  long 
evaded.  The  Jewish  temple,  which  Jesus 
purged,  was  the  political  Capitol  of  the  nation. 
He  did  precisely  what  one  of  us  would  do  if  we 
should  go  up  to  Washington,  and  suddenly 
drive  from  the  Senate  chamber  the  lobbyists, 
the  chief  of  whom  are  our  elected  senators  — 
elected  to  represent  the  corporations  for  which 
they, are  paid  attorneys.  I  am  not  saying  that 
Jesus  was  right  about  the  proceeding  ;  nor  am 
I  discussing  Dr.  Farrar's  hint  and  Renan's 
statement  that  he  acted  from  an  over-wrought 
moral  passion ;  I  am  simply  noting  the  fact 
that,  according  to  the  beloved  apostle,  his  pub- 
lic introduction  was  at  the  capital  of  his  nation, 
in  the  Capitol  building,  through  what  seemed 
to  the  authorities  a  high-handed  act  of  political 
and  economic  outrage.  He  was  finally  put  to 
death  by  the  supreme  court  of  his  nation,  on 
the  ground  that  he  endangered  the  nation's 
existence  by  doing  the  things  he  was  doing, 
by  saying  the  things  he  was  saying.  The 
judges  of  this  court  had  often  personally  en- 
joined Jesus   from   saying  the  things  that  he 


148  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

said,  and  he  had  as  often  refused  to  obey  their 
injunctions. 

When  Jesus'  ideal  is  viewed  in  its  historic  set- 
ting, the  conflict  between  that  ideal  and  the  civ- 
ilization into  which  it  came  is  seen  to  have  been 
politically  inevitable.  The  preaching  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  which  never  meant  other  than 
a  righteous  human  order,  was  the  revolutionary 
cry  of  the  Palestine  of  Jesus'  day.  For  raising 
this  cry,  the  Romans  put  men  to  death  as  an- 
archists, so  Rabbi  Hirsch  and  other  able  Jew- 
ish scholars  tell  us.  It  was  the  synonym  for 
social  justice,  and  was  so  understood  by  the 
people.  Both  John  the  Baptist  and  Jesus  put 
this  divine  social  order  before  the  individual  as 
his  spiritual  motive  and  perspective ;  then  they 
appealed  to  him  to  accept  it,  and  renounce  all 
he  had  in  behalf  of  its  realization.  This  ideal 
"  gave  utterance,"  as  Dr.  Baring-Gould  has 
pointed  out,  "  to  an  immense  inarticulate  crav- 
ing that  for  long  had  been  felt  by  a  large  sec- 
tion of  the  Jewish  people."  To  the  priests  and 
politicians  subservient  to  Roman  power  through 
self-interest,  as  well  as  to  the  Romans  them- 
selves, it  was  certain  that  Jesus  would  seem  a 
destroyer  of  all  that  was  socially  fundamental. 
Even  to  the  best,  his  presence  and  teaching 
would  seem  an  increasing  menace  to  religion 
and  civilization. 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CI VI LIZA  TION.   1 49 

I  can  never  understand  the  bald  and  persis- 
tent  statement  that  Jesus   had  nothing  to  do 
with  politics  or  economics,  except  on  the  ground 
that  we  are  anxious  to  keep  him  out  of  politics 
and  economics.     It  is  only  an  apostate  Chris- 
tianity that  asserts  that  the  Christ  has  nothing 
to  do  with  politics.     The  reign  of  Christ  will 
never  be  unless  it  comes  as  a  political  reign. 
The  notion  that  it  can  come  otherwise  is  the 
accursed  fruit  of  that  worst  and  blackest  of  all 
heresies,  —  the  heresy  that  religion  is  one  thing 
and  life  another.     The  kingdoms  of  this  world 
belong  to  Christ ;  and  the  Christianity  that  says 
that  the  preaching  of  Christ  must  be  kept  sep- 
arate from  politics  and  economics  is  simply  the 
betrayer  of  Christ  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies. 
The  price  paid  for  this  treason  is  the  money  of 
political  and  economic  self-interests,  as  it  ever 
has  been  and  ever  will  be,  until  we  have  the  re- 
vival that  shall  show  forth  Christ  as  the  giver 
of  economic  and  political  law. 

Any  genuine  religion  must  be  a  science  of 
righteous  politics,  —  a  science  of  individual  lib- 
erty. It  is  a  Hegelian  principle,  as  well  as  the 
substance  of  Hebrew  social  philosophy,  that  the 
political  life  of  the  nation  is  the  final  revelation 
of  the  moral  worth  and  living  power  of  religion. 
The  real  religious  creed  of  the  people,  the  un- 


150         BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

mistakable  evidence  of  what  they  actually  be- 
lieve, is  their  politics.  A  corrupt  state  is  simply 
the  expression  of  a  decadent  and  formal  reli- 
gion ;  and  a  merely  respectable  religion  is  the 
worst  human  enemy. 

Now,  the  history  of  Christianity  is  the  book 
of  an  unresting  conflict  between  Christ  and  civ- 
ilization ;  between  an  ideal  and  the  political 
supports  of  the  material  things  which  civiliza- 
tion takes  to  be  realities.  Edward  Carpenter 
is  right  in  declaring  that  civilization  has  always 
hated  Christ,  as  it  has  always  hated  the  com- 
munism which  it  forever  seeks  to  destroy,  yet 
which  it  blindly  builds.  Through  a  more  exact 
study  of  history,  we  now  know  that  the  so-called 
religious  persecutions  have  been  really  political. 
All  through  our  Christian  era,  when  we  come 
to  deal  with  actual  facts,  we  find  political  inte- 
rests availing  themselves  of  religious  reasons  for 
killing  men  who,  either  wisely  or  mistakenly, 
propose  to  bring  right  things  to  pass  ;  just  as 
we  now  find  monopolists  trembling  for  the 
safety  of  "the  faith,"  and  eagerly  supporting 
so-called  conservative  religion.  Of  course,  plenty 
of  religious  reasons  have  always  been  available 
for  the  politicians  and  the  economic  interests ; 
but  the  actual  reasons  were  the  menace  of 
Christ's  teachings  to  the  modes  of  life  existing 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZA  TION.   I  5  I 

as  civilization.  From  the  day  when  the  cross 
lifted  its  matchless  victim  into  eternal  view, 
down  past  the  day  when  St.  Bartholomew  mas- 
sacre was  planned  as  a  political  expedient,  we 
may  trace  the  progress  of  the  Christ  ideal,  as 
Mr.  Lowell  has  said,  "  by  the  blackened  stakes 
of  martyrs,"  in  conflict  with  material  power. 
Over  and  over  again,  our  Lord  pointed  out  how 
it  must  be  so,  until  his  reign  should  be  estab- 
lished throughout  human  life.  This  is  the 
whole  meaning  of  the  mystic  yet  terrible  ima- 
gery of  John  in  the  Revelation.  It  is  the  blood 
of  the  Lamb,  and  of  those  who  are  immersed 
in  its  sacrifice,  that  overcomes  a  material  civili- 
zation with  its  mark  of  the  beast. 

If  there  were  time,  I  could  bring  to  you  the 
testimony  of  the  church  fathers  and  the  re- 
formers, witnessing  to  the  political  and  eco- 
nomic causes  of  religious  persecutions.  Out 
of  the  mouth  of  these  witnesses,  I  could  show 
you  how  Christ's  conquest  of  the  world  has 
proceeded,  at  every  step,  through  conflict  with 
the  various  forms  and  powers  of  what  is  known 
as  civilization.  But  I  must  confine  my  cita- 
tions to  two  particular  periods  of  Christian  his- 
tory,—  that  of  the  conflict  of  early  Christianity 
with  Rome,  and  that  of  the  martyrdom  of  Sa- 
vonarola in  Florence. 


152  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

The  Roman  attitude  towards  Christianity  as 
the  enemy  of  society  is  vividly  stated  by  the 
words  which  Henryk  Sienkiewicz  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  Pilate,  in  his  little  story,  "  Let 
Us  Follow  Him."  "Answer,  Cinna,"  demands 
Pilate,  "thou  art  a  man  of  sound  judgment, — 
what  wouldst  thou  think  of  me  were  I,  neither 
from  one  cause  nor  another,  to  bestow  this 
house  in  which  thou  art  dwelling  on  those  tat- 
tered fellows  who  warm  themselves  in  the  sun 
of  the  Joppa  gate  ?  And  he  insists  on  just  such 
things.  Besides,  he  says  that  we  should  love 
all  equally,  —  the  Jews  as  well  as  the  Romans 
themselves,  the  Romans  as  the  Egyptians,  the 
Egyptians  as  the  Africans,  and  so  on.  I  con- 
fess that  I  have  had  enough  of  this.  At  the 
moment  when  his  life  is  in  peril,  he  bears  him- 
self as  if  the  question  were  of  some  one  else ; 
he  teaches  —  and  prays.  It  is  not  my  duty  to 
save  a  man  who  has  no  care  for  his  own  safety. 
Whoso  does  not  know  how  to  preserve  measure 
in  anything  is  not  a  man  of  judgment.  More- 
over, he  calls  himself  the  Son  of  God,  and  dis- 
turbs the  foundations  on  which  society  rests, 
and  therefore  harms  people.  Let  him  think 
what  he  likes  in  his  soul,  if  he  will  not  raise 
disturbance.  As  a  man  I  protest  against  his 
teaching."      More  vividly   still   is  Christianity 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CI  VI LIZ  A  TIOJV.    1 53 

seen  through  Roman  eyes  in  "Quo  Vadis." 
To  Vinicius,  "  that  religion  seemed  opposed  to 
the  existing  state  of  things,  impossible  of  prac- 
tice, and  mad  in  a  degree  beyond  all  others. 
According  to  him,  people  in  Rome  and  in  the 
whole  world  might  be  bad,  but  the  order  of 
things  was  good.  Had  Caesar,  for  example, 
been  an  honest  man,  had  the  Senate  been  com- 
posed, not  of  insignificant  libertines,  but  of  men 
like  Thrasca,  what  more  could  one  wish  ?  Nay, 
Roman  peace  and  supremacy  were  good ;  dis- 
tinction among  people  just  and  proper.  But 
that  religion,  according  to  the  understanding 
of  Vinicius,  would  destroy  all  order,  all  suprem- 
acy, every  distinction."  "I  made  the  acquain- 
tance of  a  wonderful  man,"  writes  Vinicius  to 
Petronius,  "  a  certain  Paul  of  Tarsus,  who  spoke 
to  me  of  Christ  and  his  teachings,  and  spoke 
with  such  power  that  every  word  of  his,  with- 
out his  willing  it,  turns  all  the  foundations  of 
our  society  into  ashes."  "I  know  not  how  the 
Christians  order  their  own  lives ;  but  I  know 
that  where  their  religion  begins,  Roman  rule 
ends,  Rome  itself  ends,  our  mode  of  life  ends, 
the  distinction  between  conquered  and  con- 
queror, between  rich  and  poor,  lord  and  slave, 
ends,  government  ends,  Caesar  ends,  law  and 
all  the  order  of  the  world  ends."     "  I  told  Paul," 


154  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

he  concludes,  "  that  society  would  fall  apart  be- 
cause of  his  religion,  as  a  cask  without  hoops  ; 
he  answered,  '  Love  is  a  stronger  hoop  than 
fear.'  " 

Questions  have  been  raised  as  to  the  his- 
torical accuracy  of  "Quo  Vadis."  While  Sien- 
kiewicz  has  used  the  license  and  historical 
imagination  permitted  the  novelist,  in  his  great 
romance  of  early  Christianity,  it  is  evident  that 
he  writes  with  thorough  scientific  knowledge  of 
the  facts  and  forces  of  the  struggles  between 
Christ  and  Rome.  No  one  need  expect  either 
to  verify  or  to  disprove  these  facts  from  any  of 
the  church  histories,  or  indeed  to  learn  any- 
thing about  them  from  such  source.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  probably  nothing  is  more  unreliable 
and  partisan,  and  indeed  so  wholly  without 
knowledge  of  the  thing  it  is  supposed  to  record, 
as  church  history.  The  church  histories,  even 
at  their  best,  are  attorneys'  briefs,  written  in 
the  interest  of  theological  or  critical  schools,  or 
from  ecclesiastical  points  of  view.  The  begin- 
nings of  some  very  noble  work,  monumental 
in  its  character,  was  done  by  the  beloved  Dr. 
Hatch,  in  his  "  Influence  of  Greek  Ideas  and 
Usages  Upon  the  Christian  Church,"  and  in  his 
"  Organization  of  the  Early  Christian  Churches." 
If  his  life  had  been  spared,  we  might  have  had 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVIL  fZA  TION.    I  5  S 

from  him  a  history  of  the  Christian  peoples, 
instead  of  the  annals  of  the  combats  of  theolo- 
gians and  ecclesiastical  politicians.  Some  very 
skilful  and  useful  beginnings  in  this  direction 
have  been  made  by  Professor  Nitti,  in  his  work 
on  "  Catholic  Socialism,"  which  shows  us  clearly 
the  economic  and  political  causes  of  the  early 
Christian  persecutions.  From  many  sources, 
he  discloses  the  effect  of  Christianity  in  a  vast 
economic  revolution,  destroying  the  foundations 
of  the  Roman  order  of  things,  even  when  ques- 
tions were  discussed  in  theological  terms.  In  his 
"  Law  of  Civilization  and  Decay,"  Mr.  Brooks 
Adams  points  out  how  the  position  of  the  early 
Christians  in  the  Roman  empire  was  practically 
that  of  the  nihilists  of  to-day  in  the  Russian  em- 
pire ;  the  light  in  which  they  were  regarded  by 
Roman  civilization  was  much  the  same  as  that 
in  which  the  nihilists  are  viewed  by  European 
civilization.  "  It  was  indeed,"  says  Cardinal 
Newman,  "an  old,  decayed,  and  moribund  world, 
into  which  Christianity  had  been  cast.  The 
social  fabric  was  overgrown  with  the  corrup- 
tions of  a  thousand  years,  and  was  held  together, 
not  so  much  by  any  common  principle,  as  by  the 
strength  of  possession  and  the  tenacity  of  cus- 
tom. It  was  too  large  for  public  spirit,  and  too 
artificial  for  patriotism,  and  its  many  religions 


156  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

did  but  foster  in  the  popular  mind  division  and 
scepticism.  Want  of  mutual  confidence  would 
lead  to  despondency,  inactivity,  and  selfishness. 
Society  was  in  the  slow  fever  of  consumption, 
which  made  it  restless  in  proportion  as  it  was 
feeble.  It  was  powerful,  however,  to  seduce 
and  deprave ;  nor  was  there  any  locus  standi 
from  which  to  combat  its  evils  ;  and  the  only 
way  of  getting  on  in  it  was  to  abandon  principle 
and  duty,  to  take  things  as  they  came,  and  to  do 
as  the  world  did." 

It  is  the  critical  study  of  history  —  history 
written  with  the  spade  and  pickaxe  —  that 
makes  clear  the  nature  of  the  struggle  between 
Rome  and  Jesus,  between  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  and  Caesar's  legions.  This  critical  study 
reveals  how  the  early  Christian  persecutions 
were  caused  by  no  hostility  to  their  religion  as 
such.  Every  man  could  worship  whom  and 
what  he  pleased,  so  far  as  the  Romans  were 
concerned ;  they  were  hospitable  to  all  reli- 
gions ;  they  opened  temple  doors  to  all  the 
gods,  and  stole  such  gods  as  hesitated  to  enter 
their  Pantheon.  "  The  sceptical  masters  of 
Rome,"  says  Henry  George,  "tolerant  of  all 
gods,  careless  of  what  they  deemed  vulgar  su- 
perstitions, were  keenly  sensitive  to  a  doctrine 
based  on  equal  rights;  they  feared. instinctively 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZATION.    1 57 

a  religion  that  inspired  slave  and  proletariat 
with  a  new  hope ;  that  took  for  its  central 
figure  a  crucified  carpenter ;  that  taught  the 
equal  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  equal  brother- 
hood of  men ;  that  looked  for  the  speedy  reign 
of  justice,  and  that  prayed,  'Thy  kingdom  come 
on  earth  ! '  "  The  Roman  upper  classes  keenly 
discerned  that  the  spread  of  a  society,  and  the 
growth  of  communities,  based  upon  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus,  meant  the  ultimate  submerging 
of  the  whole  Roman  political  and  economic 
fabric.  Hence  the  early  Christians  were  tor- 
tured, imprisoned,  exiled,  and  put  to  terrible 
forms  of  death,  on  the  charge  of  anarchy  and 
atheism  ;  on  the  charge  of  being-  destroyers  of 
morals,  religion,  property,  and  the  state.  The 
conflict  was  a  social  conflict,  a  life  and  death 
meeting  of  two  antipodal  conceptions.  Both 
social  conceptions  could  not  stay  together  in 
the  same  world,  any  more  than  light  and  dark- 
ness, love  and  force,  could  stay  together.  There 
was  not  room  in  humanity  for  both  Caesar  and 
Jesus. 

Now,  the  best  and  most  impartial  work  which 
has  been  done  along  the  line  of  critical  investi- 
gation upon  our  subject  is  that  of  Professor 
Rodolfo  Lanciani  of  Rome,  some  of  whose  lec- 
tures it  was  my  privilege  to  hear  in  that  city. 


158  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

I  wish  that  every  student  of  social  and  religious 
problems  might  carefully  read  Professor  Lanci- 
ani's  book  on  "Pagan  and  Christian  Rome." 
All  his  authorities,  and  the  results  of  his  re- 
searches, are  carefully  given.  And,  best  of  all, 
it  is  manifest  to  any  one  that  he  has  investigated 
without  the  slightest  taint  of  any  sort  of  parti- 
san motive  ;  indeed,  with  a  sweet  unconscious- 
ness of  there  being  any  other  than  the  truly 
religious  as  well  as  scientific  motive  of  finding 
out  the  facts.  He  writes  simply  as  a  most 
patient  and  critical  archaeologist  and  historian. 
His  work  comes  as  near  being  authoritative  and 
final,  so  far  as  it  has  gone,  as  such  work  is  ever 
likely  to  be.  Without  any  thought  of  support- 
ing anything  or  any  position,  but  purely  as  an 
archaeologist  and  scientific  historian,  he  presents 
the  facts  which  support  precisely  the  position 
assumed  by  Sienkiewicz  in  "  Quo  Vadis."  "  We 
must  not  believe,"  he  says,  "  that  gentiles  and 
Christians  lived  always  at  swords'  points.  Ital- 
ians in  general,  and  Romans  in  particular,  are 
noted  for  their  great  tolerance  in  matters  of 
religion,  which  sometimes  degenerates  into 
apathy  and  indifference.  Whether  it  be  a  sign 
of  feebleness  of  character,  or  of  common  sense, 
the  fact  is,  that  religious  feuds  have  never  been 
allowed  to  prevail  among  us.     In  no  part  of  the 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIS!1  WITH  CI VI LIZA  TION.    I  59 

world  have  the  Jews  enjoyed  more  freedom 
and  tolerance  than  in  the  Roman  Ghetto.  The 
same  feelings  prevailed  in  imperial  Rome, 
except  for  occasional  outbursts  of  passion,  fo- 
mented by  the  official  persecutors."  "  The 
transformation  of  Rome  from  a  pagan  into  a 
Christian  city  was  a  sudden  and  unexpected 
event,  which  took  the  world  by  surprise."  But 
"  it  was  not  a  revolution  or  a  conversion  in  the 
true  sense  of  these  words  ;  it  was  the  official 
recognition  of  a  state  of  things  which  had  long 
ceased  to  be  a  secret.  The  moral  superiority 
of  the  new  doctrines  over  the  old  religions  was 
so  evident,  so  overpowering,  that  the  result  of 
the  struggle  had  been  a  foregone  conclusion 
since  the  ages  of  the  first  apologists.  The 
revolution  was  an  exceedingly  mild  one,  the 
transformation  almost  imperceptible.  No  vio- 
lence was  resorted  to,  and  the  tolerance  and 
mutual  benevolence  so  characteristic  of  the 
Italian  race  was  adopted  as  the  fundamental 
policy  of  state  and  church."  "  In  Rome  itself 
the  apostle  could  preach  the  gospel  with  free- 
dom, even  when  in  custody,  or  under  police 
supervision.  And  as  it  was  lawful  for  a  Roman 
citizen  to  embrace  the  Jewish  persuasion,  and 
give  up  the  religion  of  his  fathers,  he  was 
equally  free   to    embrace  the   Evangelic  faith, 


l6o  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

which  was  considered  by  the  pagans  a  Jewish 
sect,  not  a  new  belief." 

The  first  persecutions  must  be  attributed, 
says  Professor  Lanciani,  not  to  the  Romans, 
but  to  the  Jews,  who  found  it  of  vital  impor- 
tance to  "  separate  their  cause  from  that  of  the 
new-comers."  The  church,  thus  being  "re- 
pudiated by  her  mother  the  synagogue,  could 
no  longer  share  the  privileges  of  the  Jewish 
community.  As  for  the  state,  it  became  a  ne- 
cessity either  to  recognize  Christianity  as  a  new 
legal  religion,  or  to  proscribe  and  condemn  it. 
The  great  fire  which  destroyed  half  of  Rome 
under  Nero,  and  which  was  purposely  attributed 
to  the  Christians,  brought  the  situation  to  a 
crisis.  The  first  persecution  began.  Had  the 
magistrate  who  conducted  the  inquiry  been  able 
to  prove  the  indictment  of  arson,  perhaps  the 
storm  would  have  been  short,  and  confined  to 
Rome ;  but  as  the  Christians  could  easily  ex- 
culpate themselves,  the  trial  was  changed  from 
a  criminal  into  a  politico-religious  one.  The 
Christians  were  convicted  not  so  much  of  arson, 
as  of  a  hatred  of  mankind  ;  a  formula  which 
includes  anarchism,  atheism,  and  high  treason. 
This  monstrous  accusation  once  admitted,  the 
persecution  could  not  be  limited  to  Rome  ;  it 
necessarily    became    general."     Of    the    subse- 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZATION.    l6l 

quent  historic  persecutions  of  the  Christians, 
Professor  Lanciani  says  :  "  Strange  to  say,  more 
clemency  was  shown  towards  them  by  emperors 
whom  we  are  accustomed  to  call  tyrants,  than 
by  those  who  are  considered  models  of  virtue. 
The  author  of  the  'Philosophumena'  (book  ix., 
ch.  n)  says  that  Commodus  granted  to  Pope 
Victor  the  liberation  of  the  Christians  who  had 
been  condemned  to  the  mines  of  Sardinia  by 
Marcus  Aurelius.  Thus  that  profligate  em- 
peror was  really  more  merciful  to  the  church 
than  the  philosophic  author  of  the  '  Medita- 
tions,' who,  in  the  year  174,  had  witnessed  the 
miracle  of  the  Thundering  Legion.  The  reason 
is  evident.  The  wise  rulers  foresaw  the  destruc- 
tive effect  of  the  new  doctrines  on  pagan  society, 
and  indirectly  on  the  empire  itself;  whereas 
those  who  were  given  over  to  dissipation  were 
indifferent  to  the  danger ;  '  after  them  the 
deluge !  '  " 

Let  us  now  pass  on  to  the  conflict  of  Savo- 
narola with  medieval  civilization.  Protestants 
complain  because  the  inscription  on  the  enor- 
mous statue  of  Savonarola,  in  the  great  hall  of 
old  Florence,  is  to  the  effect  that  he  was  a 
martyr  to  Italian  unity.  They  smile  at  this  as 
a  Catholic  evasion  of  the  facts  of  Savonarola's 
martyrdom.     And  yet  if  a  smile  of  pitying  de- 


1 62  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

rision  is  ever  rightly  evoked,  there  is  reason 
enough  for  it  in  the  Protestant  prejudice  and 
ignorance  which  makes  this  complaint.  Savo- 
narola was  always  a  faithful  Catholic.  He 
never  departed,  nor  was  he  even  charged  with 
departing,  from  strict  adherence  to  both  the 
religious  and  ecclesiastical  teachings  of  the 
church.  He  was  in  no  sense  what  we  call  a 
Protestant,  either  in  his  faith  or  his  religious 
reforms ;  and  he  was  a  forerunner  of  Protes- 
tantism only  in  the  same  sense  that  St.  Fran- 
cis or  even  Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  might  be 
called  such  a  forerunner.  The  charges  against 
Savonarola  were  political  charges ;  his  trial 
was  a  political  trial  ;  his  death  was  a  political 
martyrdom.  His  reforms  were  none  the  less 
religious  because  of  their  social  and  civic  na- 
ture ;  but  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
theological  and  ecclesiastical  problems  that 
afterwards  occupied  Protestantism. 

Savonarola  had  constantly  before  him  the 
dream  of  a  regenerated  and  united  Europe.  In 
a  true  sense,  he  and  Dante  were  the  political 
heirs  of  the  religious  and  social  ideal  of  St. 
Francis.  Savonarola  sought  a  free  and  right- 
eous Florence  as  the  city  of  God,  from  which 
the  salvation  of  Christ  would  go  forth  to  redeem 
and  unite  Italy,  and  then  move  northward  to 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZATION.    1 63 

regenerate  and  unite  Europe  in  the  full  come 
kingdom  of  heaven.  We  critics,  who  take  our 
little  profundities  so  solemnly,  and  who  spend 
our  days  analyzing  and  criticising  the  men  who 
have  done  something,  in  order  that  we  may  lay 
wise  foundations  for  doing  nothing  ourselves, 
are  quite  clear  and  agreed  that  the  mistake  and 
failure  of  Savonarola's  life  was  in  committing 
his  cause  to  a  political  party.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
it  was  a  political  cause,  with  a  religious  revival 
for  its  dynamic.  It  was  a  deliberate  attempt, 
steadily  adhered  to  unto  the  hour  when  the 
great  martyr  swung  from  the  historic  piazzi  in 
Florence,  to  establish  the  political  reign  of 
Christ  in  Europe.  The  purification  of  Flor- 
ence, the  banishing  of  those  practices  which 
seemed  to  him  to  defile  citizens  and  city,  was 
intended  to  culminate  in  a  solemn  declaration 
to  the  world  that  Christ  was  king  of  Florence. 
"  God  permitted,"  he  says,  "that  I  should  come 
to  Florence,  which  is  the  light  of  Italy,  that  you 
might  spread  the  knowledge  of  repentance  to 
all  the  other  cities  of  Italy.  But  thou,  Florence, 
hast  heard  of  this  only  from  the  report  of  others ; 
and,  therefore,  thou,  Florence,  wilt  have  no  ex- 
cuse if  thou  repent  not.  Believe  me,  Florence, 
it  is  not  I,  it  is  God  who  says  these  things." 
"  Florence,  wilt  thou  have  liberty  ?     Citizens, 


[64  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

will  ye  be  free?  First,  love  God,  love  your 
neighbor,  love  one  another,  love  the  common 
good.  If  you  have  this  love  and  this  union 
among  yourselves,  you  will  have  true  liberty." 
Later,  and  in  anxious  urgency,  he  exclaims  : 
"I  warn  you  that  already  Italy  is  near  the  be- 
ginning of  her  tribulations.  O  Italy  !  O  princes 
of  Italy  !  O  prelates  of  the  church  !  the  wrath 
of  God  is  upon  you,  and  you  have  no  remedy 
unless  you  repent!  O  Italy!  O  Florence!  for 
thy  sins  these  trials  are  coming  upon  thee ! 
Repent  while  the  sword  is  yet  unsheathed, 
while  it  is  not  yet  stained  with  blood  !  The 
conclusion  is  this :  I  have  told  thee  all  these 
things,  with  reasons  divine  and  human,  with 
moderation,  restraining  my  language.  I  have 
besought  thee.  I  cannot  command  thee,  be- 
cause I  am  not  thy  master,  but  thy  father.  Do 
thou  act,  O  Florence  !  I  can  only  pray  that  God 
may  enlighten  thee."  Then  at  the  end,  keep- 
ing unbroken  faith  with  his  ideal,  he  comforts 
his  brother-monks  with  these  words  :  "  My  chil- 
dren, before  God,  before  the  consecrated  host, 
with  the  enemy  already  in  the  convent,  I  con- 
firm to  you  my  doctrine.  That  which  I  have 
spoken  I  have  received  from  God,  and  he  is  my 
witness  in  heaven  that  I  do  not  lie.  I  did  not 
know  that  the  whole  city  was  to  turn  against 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CI  VI LI /.A  Tl OX.    1 05 

me ;  but  the  will  of  the  Lord  be  done.  My 
last  counsel  is  this :  let  faith,  patience,  and 
prayers  be  your  arms.  I  leave  you  with  anguish 
and  grief,  to  put  myself  into  the  hands  of  my 
enemies.  I  know  not  whether  they  will  take 
away  my  life  ;  but  I  am  certain  that  if  I  must 
die,  I  shall  be  able  to  aid  you  in  heaven  more 
than  I  have  been  able  to  do  on  earth." 

Savonarola  failed  in  the  end,  we  say,  speaking 
historically.  Yet  his  ideal  still  dominates  the 
Christian  apostleship  of  the  world,  and  he  actu- 
ally succeeded,  for  the  time  being,  as  no  other 
man  has  ever  succeeded  in  a  like  undertaking, 
unless  it  be  Moses,  or  the  great  Ambrose  at 
Milan.  Neither  Isaiah  at  Jerusalem,  nor  Calvin 
at  Geneva,  nor  Cromwell  in  England,  nor  Maz- 
zini  at  Rome,  held  spiritual  sway  over  a  political 
and  social  situation  with  any  such  defmiteness 
of  effect  or  length  of  time  as  Savonarola  ruled 
Florence  in  the  name  of  Christ,  and  from  the 
pulpit  of  the  Duomo.  "  For  years,"  says  his 
greatest  biographer,  "  Savonarola  worked  in  the 
midst  of  successes  which  have  seldom,  perhaps 
never,  been  attained  in  the  civil  reform  of  a 
state  by  one  whose  days  had  been  spent  in  re- 
tirement and  preaching."  And  his  triumphs 
were  achieved  in  steady  and  open  war  against 
the    most    magnificent   and    popular    tyrant   of 


1 66  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

medieval  times,  Lorenzo  de  Medici,  who  was 
also  master  of  all  the  medieval  arts  of  intrigue 
and  power. 

The  conflict  between  Christ  and  civilization 
still  goes  on.  It  must  go  on,  until  Carl  Marx's 
ideal  of  a  perpetually  fluid  civilization  is  realized 
by  the  universal  acceptance  of  the  love  of  Christ 
as  the  sole  human  law  and  liberty.  Christ  and 
civilization  are  building  upon  two  entirely  op- 
posing principles :  the  war  between  them  is  the 
war  of  love  against  self-interest  as  the  governing 
principle  of  mankind.  It  is  this  law  of  self- 
interest  which  makes  civilization  the  antithesis 
of  all  that  the  name  of  Christ  rightly  stands  for. 
"  For  all  industrial  matters,"  says  Frederic  Har- 
rison, "in  modern  Europe  and  America,  amoral 
code  has  been  evolved,  which  makes  the  un- 
limited indulgence  of  self-interest,  pushed  to 
the  very  verge  of  liability  to  law,  the  supreme 
social  duty  of  the  industrious  citizen."  "  Econ- 
omists, politicians,  moralists,  and  even  preach- 
ers," he  says,  "urge  on  the  enterprising 
capitalist  that  the  industrialist  does  best  his 
duty  by  society  who  does  best  his  duty  by  him- 
self. Banker,  merchant,  manufacturer,  proprie- 
tor, tradesman,  and  workman  alike  submit  to 
this  strange  moral  law.  It  is  assumed  as  beyond 
proof  that  the   rapid  increase  of  business,  the 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZATION.    1 67 

great  accumulation  of  wealth,  is  a  good  per  se 
—  good  for  the  capitalist,  good  for  society.  No 
account  is  taken  of  the  business  ruined,  of  the 
workmen  thrown  out  of  employment,  of  the 
over-production,  of  the  useless,  mischievous, 
rotten  trade  created,  and  of  all  the  manifold 
evils  scattered  broadcast  among  the  producers 
and  every  one  within  range  of  the  work.  It  is 
enough  to  have  made  business,  to  have  accumu- 
lated wealth,  without  coming  within  the  grasp 
of  the  law."  "  Here,  then,"  concludes  Mr. 
Harrison,  "  is  the  all-sufficient  source  of  indus- 
trial maladies.  We  have  come,  in  matters  in- 
dustrial, to  treat  duty  to  others,  and  duty  to 
society,  as  only  to  be  found  in  duty  to  self." 

If  any  one  doubts  the  fundamental  antagonism 
between  existing  civilization  and  the  teachings 
of  Jesus,  let  him  read  certain  editorials  in  the 
New  York  Post,  which  is  the  ablest  organ  of 
the  new  bourbonism  and  of  the  present  order 
of  things.  These  editorials  are  not  exceptional 
in  their  tone,  but  are  indeed  fairly  typical  of  the 
protests  which  abundantly  issue  from  the  public 
press,  the  political  platform,  the  representative 
pulpit,  the  academic  chair.  Certain  college  pro- 
fessors, whose  crime  is  that  they  have  sought 
social  justice  through  the  application  of  Jesus' 
teachings  to  social  conditions,  are  classified  as 


1 68  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

"  offenders  who  must  not  escape."  These  seek- 
ers are  accused  of  inflaming  the  masses  "  with 
passion  to  overthrow  the  courts,  to  the  end  that 
they  might  place  themselves  where  '  law  cannot 
touch  us  '  —  that  law  which  college  professors 
told  these  poor  men,  many  of  them  new-comers 
in  America,  was  only  a  synonym  for  injustice. 
They  have  told  the  ignorant  who  looked  up  to 
them  for  instruction  that  Jesus  Christ  was  an 
anarchist,  and  that  every  good  Christian  nowa- 
days should  be  the  same,  and  sent  away  their 
audiences  with  murder  in  their  hearts."  "We 
have  said,"  continues  this  editorial,  "that  these 
men  and  their  like  have  not  been  indicted,  and 
probably  cannot  be  punished  under  any  law  on 
the  statute-book  —  though  their  offence  differs 
little  in  its  essence  from  that  of  Parsons,  the 
Chicago  anarchist,  who  was  convicted  and 
hanged  for  inciting  others  to  murder,  rather 
than  for  actual  participation  in  the  killing." 
Hear  the  conclusion  :  "  Even  if  the  statute- 
book  does  not  yet  contain  a  penalty  for  such 
offenders,  they  can  still  be  made  to  suffer.  The 
power  of  public  opinion  can  be  brought  to  bear, 
and  the  indignation  of  the  right-minded  can  be 
directed  against  them.  They  should  be  made 
to  feel  that  the  people  recognize  their  guilt,  and 
will  take  care  that  a  repetition  of  such  incite- 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZA  Tl 'OX.    1 69 

ments  to  crime  shall  be  properly  punished." 
In  another  editorial,  the  tender  wisdom  and 
touching  discrimination  of  this  same  writer  ap- 
pears :  "  The  church  for  ages  did  excellent  work 
in  preaching  content  to  the  poor  and  unfortu- 
nate, for  there  was  then  really  no  escape  from 
their  misery.  These  teachings  have  now  been 
dropped,  or  fall  on  leaden  ears.  The  new  doc- 
trine that  no  man  should  be  content,  that  all 
should  try  to  rise,  has  been  converted  into  a 
proposition  that  all  can  rise,  and  that  if  anybody 
does  not  rise,  it  is  because  somebody  is  keeping 
him  down.  Herein  lies  the  source  of  all  our 
woes.  Anybody  who  goes  about  spreading  this 
view  is  really  an  accessory  before  the  fact  to  all 
anarchist  crimes."  Put  over  against  all  of  this 
a  cry  from  the  beautiful  soul  of  George  William 
Curtis,  not  long  before  he  left  us  :  "  Is  there 
anything  more  certain  than  that  the  Christen- 
dom which  actually  rejects  the  Christian  ideals  ^ 
and  principles  as  impracticable,  denounces  most 
savagely  those  who  practically  illustrate  them, 
even  if  they  theoretically  reject  them?" 

As  I  have  already  tried  to  point  out,  in  pre- 
ceding lectures,  the  conflict  between  Christ 
and  civilization  is  made  very  specific,  to  us  of 
this  day,  by  the  economic  problem.  The  prob- 
lem has  been  made  threatening:  to  our  nation 


170  BETWEEN  GAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

by  the  subversion  of  every  human  interest  to 
money.  In  no  nation  on  earth  is  there  such 
abject  submission  to  mere  money,  in  both  church 
and  state,  as  here  in  America.  The  emancipa- 
tion of  life,  of  our  nation  and  its  institutions, 
from  the  rule  of  money  is  our  religio-economic 
problem  in  its  first  and  political  aspect.  It  pre- 
sents the  national  and  social  situation  for  which 
we  are  each  responsible.  It  points  out  the  de- 
liverance for  which  we  must  individually  and 
collectively  give  ourselves,  and  that  with  divine 
urgency. 

Organized  money  menaces  the  integrity  and 
perpetuity  of  every  existing  government.  It  is 
causing  the  peoples  international  to  question, 
as  never  before,  the  utility  of  government ;  they 
are  beginning  to  distinguish  between  govern- 
ment and  the  nation,  between  legalism  and  law, 
between  power  and  liberty.  From  St.  Peters- 
burg to  the  plains  of  the  Dakotas,  toilers  and 
producers  are  asking  why  they  should  toil  to 
produce  billions  to  support  governments  which 
are  the  instruments  of  the  privileged  classes  to 
further  exploit  them.  They  are  asking  why 
they  must  support  navies,  armies,  and  parasitic 
legislatures  to  protect  them  from  each  other, 
when  they  are  in  reality  brothers  and  need  no 
such    protection.     The  idea  of  government  as 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITN  CIVILIZATION.   171 

fraternal  co-operation,  as  brotherhood,  as  friend- 
ship, is  the  living  dynamite  that  is  getting  un- 
derneath the  thrones  of  the  Old  World,  and 
underneath  the  legislatures  of  our  American 
money  lords. 

It  is  time  for  the  Christian  apostle  to  plainly 
examine  and  challenge  the  social  right  of  great 
possessors  of  wealth  to  their  possessions.  Of 
this  wealth,  the  possessors  are  neither  the  crea- 
tors nor  the  rightful  owners  ;  it  was  created  by 
the  people,  and  to  the  people  it  belongs.  To 
say  this  may  be  dangerous  ;  but  there  is  infi- 
nitely greater  danger  in  leaving  it  unsaid. 

If  the  teachings  of  Jesus  are  dangerous  and 
destructive,  if  he  spake  impracticable  things 
which  he  did  not  understand,  if  his  words  are 
the  cries  of  an  over-wrought  enthusiast,  then 
let  us  quit  worshipping  him,  and  put  an  end  to 
this  colossal  thing  we  call  Christianity.  If 
Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Redeemer  of 
man,  if  he  is  the  true  teacher  of  practicable 
teachings,  then  while  it  is  yet  clay,  before  dread- 
ful judgment  comes  on,  let  us  begin  to  preach 
what  he  taught,  and  to  divinely  enforce  the  jus- 
tice of  his  love. 

We  shall  meet  with  misunderstanding  and 
complaint,  as  we  speak  against  the  existing 
order  of  things  in  the  name  of  Christ,  but  we 


172  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

may  meet  it  with  loving  faith.  We  have  the 
whole  of  Christian  history  behind  us  ;  it  was  to 
show  this,  that  I  briefly  and  rudely  sketch ed 
two  great  scenes  in  the  on-going  drama  of  Chris- 
tian conquest,  and  pointed  to  our  own  place  in 
the  scene  now  upon  the  stage.  What  else  can 
the  humblest  disciple  do,  and  be  true,  than 
stand  for  an  order  of  life  that  shall  incarnate 
the  ideal  of  his  Lord  ?  "  Revolution  is  for  us," 
says  Mazzini,  "  a  work  of  education,  a  religious 
mission."  No  disciple,  without  being  apostate, 
can  suffer  any  order  to  exist  or  crystallize  short 
of  Jesus'  goal  of  the  realized  kingdom  of  heaven. 
We  are  not  here  to  preserve  the  existing  order, 
but  to  establish  the  Christ  order.  "  The  exist- 
ing order  of  things,"  said  Judge  Gaynor  in 
Brooklyn,  not  long  ago,  "  may  be  the  worst  pos- 
sible order  of  things.  The  existing  order  of 
things  crucified  Jesus  because  he  was  a  de- 
nouncer ;  and  in  this  enlightened  nation  the 
existing  order  of  things,  even  during  the  life- 
time of  those  of  us  who  are  still  called  young, 
was  that  one  human  being  might  own  another, 
and  good  men  were  mobbed  for  objecting  to  it. 
We  owe  all  that  we  have  to  the  steady  advance 
of  the  human  race  against  the  compact  mass 
who  always  cried  out,  and  still  cry  out  as  lustily 
as  ever,  'Don't  disturb  the  existing  order  of 
things.' 


>  j» 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZATION.   1 73 

No  doubt  the  thought  of  love  as  law  is  still 
the  most  revolutionary  idea  that  can  be  intro- 
duced into  society.  The  liberating  truth  for 
which  Jesus  gave  his  life,  for  which  the  proph- 
ets before  and  the  apostles  after  him  gave  their 
lives,  is  certainly  disturbing  to  much  of  what 
we  have  learned  as  truth  in  our  schools  and 
churches,  in  our  politics  and  commerce.  "  No 
book  could  be  distributed  among  the  servile 
population  more  incendiary  than  the  Bible,  if 
they  could  only  read  it,"  said  Mr.  Lowell  in  his 
famous  Tract  Society  address.  A  great  Eng- 
lish ecclesiastic  declares  that  the  application  of 
Jesus'  teachings  would  destroy  existing  civili- 
zation to  the  foundations.  Shall  we  therefore 
be  silent  ?  Nay,  it  is  our  silence  for  the  sake 
of  peace  that  has  brought  upon  us  our  present 
universal  tragedy.  No  superstition  is  so  gross 
and  dangerous  as  the  superstition  that  it  is 
dangerous  for  a  man  to  speak  the  truth  he 
sees.  In  liberty  only  is  safety  found,  and  we 
are  atheists  to  the  extent  that  we  fear  to  trust 
liberty.  If  the  Anglican  bishop  is  right,  then 
safety  lies  in  building  a  civilization  that  will 
stand  the  test  of  the  highest  truth  we  know. 
We  really  do  not  care  what  becomes  of  what 
is  called  civilization  ;  we  care  only  for  what 
becomes   of  human   beings.     The  risht  of  the 


174  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

humblest  human  soul  to  the  resources  and  lib- 
erty needful  for  living  a  complete  and  unfear- 
ing  life  is  infinitely  more  sacred  than  the  whole 
fabric  and  machinery  of  civilization.  We  may 
serenely  bless  every  passing  of  institutions  or 
systems  that  makes  way  for  what  our  one  great 
poet  calls  "  the  institution  of  the  dear  love  of 
comrades." 

And  when  that  word  love  is  spoken,  the 
whole  problem  of  society  is  stated.  "What 
is  the  disease  from  which  our  entire  civiliza- 
tion suffers,"  asks  Richard  Wagner,  "but  want 
of  love  ?  "  Yet  is  it  the  want  of  love,  or  the 
lack  of  faith  in  it,  that  ails  civilization  ?  Surely, 
the  thought  of  love  as  law  could  never  have 
been  born,  if  love  were  not  the  substance  and 
reality  of  the  common  life,  in  spite  of  the  strife 
and  tragedy  of  historic  experience.  With  each 
new  experience,  with  the  appearing  and  van- 
ishing of  each  problem  and  its  crisis,  humanity 
is  anew  and  more  fully  committed  to  the  law 
of  love  as  the  sole  bond  of  unity,  and  the  sole 
ground  of  liberty.  That  this  love  will  triumph 
at  last,  and  have  the  human  future  for  its  own, 
is  the  world's  beatific  hope  that  will  not  die. 
The  successive  steps  by  which  this  hope  may 
be  fulfilled,  I  cannot  tell,  nor  lives  there  a  man 
who  can.     We  ought  not  to  be  told  by  an  indi- 


CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  WITH  CIVILIZATION.    1 75 

vidual,  for  the  clay  of  the  individual  initiative 
has  gone  by,  and  the  day  of  the  people  is  com- 
ing. Man's  destiny  of  organized  love  will  be 
wrought  out  by  the  common  experience,  the 
common  suffering,  the  common  faith,  the  inven- 
tion of  the  common  love.  But,  though  I  can- 
not see  the  steps  that  lead  to  the  goal,  I  see 
that  the  social  future  of  love  is  sure,  and  I 
am  not  wrong  in  pleading  that  we  commit  our- 
selves to  the  vision.  Already  human  life  is  so 
settled  in  discontent  with  all  that  is  not  love, 
so  glowing  with  brotherly  feeling  and  so  active 
with  saving  forces,  so  near  to  breathing  the 
heavenly  breath  and  so  watchful  for  the  holy 
city,  that  it  may  be  that  the  social  crisis  will 
open  the  gates  of  the  nations  for  the  universal 
revolution  of  love,  and  the  peoples  enter  upon 
the  strifeless  progress  of  the  ransomed  society. 


LECTURE  VI. 

THE   CONFLICT   OF   CHRIST   WITH 
CHRISTIANITY. 


Revolution  is  then  for  us  a  work  of  education,  a  religious  mis- 
sion. Had  we  naught  to  sustain  us  in  our  struggles  but  the  impulse 
of  anger  or  of  reaction,  we  should  long  ago  have  been  disheartened 
by  doubt  and  wearied  by  delusions.  Had  we  drawn  our  inspiration 
from  the  love  of  power,  we  could,  by  sacrificing  our  convictions  in 
part,  have  at  once  satisfied  the  low  desire.  As  there  exists  no 
church  save  one  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  the  truth,  and  degenerated 
from  its  first  institution,  we  are  now  the  Militant  Church  of  Precur- 
sors to  the  temple  which  shall  be  rebuilt,  invoking  the  kingdom  of 
God,  upon  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  We  are  the  Church  of  Precur- 
sors until  the  virtuous  who  feel  the  necessity  of  a  true  and  living 
faith,  as  the  unifier  of  all  human  efforts,  and  inspirer  of  all  human 
faculties,  having  assembled  in  council,  having  interrogated  progress, 
having  explored  the  evils,  and  decreed  the  remedies  for  our  state, 
shall  lay  the  first  stone  of  the  Universal  Church  of  Humanity.  And 
then  only,  the  world  being  conquered  by  his  teaching,  Jesus  will  be 
able  to  repeat  to  the  Father  with  an  ineffable  smile :  "  I  have  mani- 
fested thy  name  unto  the  men  which  thou  gavest  me  out  of  the 
world;  thine  they  were  and  thou  gavest  them  me;  and  they  have 
kept  thy  word."  — Joseph  Mazzini. 


VI. 

THE   CONFLICT   OF   CHRIST   WITH 
CHRISTIANITY. 

I  was  then  carried  in  spirit  to  the  mines  where  poor  oppressed 
people  were  digging  rich  treasures  for  those  called  Christians,  and 
heard  them  blaspheme  the  name  of  Christ,  at  which  I  was  grieved, 
for  his  name  to  me  was  precious.  I  was  then  informed  that  these 
heathens  were  told  that  those  who  oppressed  them  were  the  followers 
of  Christ,  and  they  said  among  themselves,  "  If  Christ  directed  them 
to  use  us  in  this  sort,  then  Christ  is  a  cruel  tyrant."  —  John  Wool- 
man. 

Among  all  classes,  there  is  a  growing  feeling 
that  some  sort  of  a  new  religious  movement  is 
the  sole  hope  of  a  peaceful  social  revolution. 
As  the  problem  of  society  grows  more  porten- 
tous and  complicated,  as  the  stress  and  strain 
of  soul  increase,  it  is  seen  by  all  that  the  revo- 
lutionary methods  of  the  past  will  not  help  us  ; 
that  we  must  somehow  look  for  the  incoming 
of  spiritual  forces  sufficient  to  procure  a  revolu- 
tion of  love  and  fraternity.  The  social  con- 
science craves  a  religion,  the  social  shame  and 
woe  cry  for  a  salvation,  the  world  waits  for  a 
faith,  for  which  men  are  once  more  ready  to  die 
179 


l8o  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

or  live  with  equal  joy.  We  need,  as  Mazzini 
said,  "a  social  faith  which  may  save  us  from 
anarchy,  the  moral  inspiration  which  may  ex- 
press that  faith  in  action  and  keep  us  from  idle 
contemplation."  And  the  faith  for  which  men 
seek  death,  he  says,  "  is  neither  the  frenzy  of 
culpable  agitators,  nor  the  dream  of  deluded 
men  ;  it  is  the  germ  of  a  religion,  a  providen- 
tial decree." 

It  is  also  felt  by  all  that  the  spiritual  move- 
ment for  which  we  wait,  if  it  answers  the  uni- 
versal social  need,  must  come  m  the  terms  of 
the  economic  problem.  The  religious  question 
of  to-day  is  an  economic  question  ;  the  spiritual 
task  before  religion  is  that  of  making  property 
a  medium  and  an  expression  of  spiritual  aspira 
tions  and  ideals.  The  economic  question  can 
never  be  separated  from  the  religious  ques- 
tion, nor  the  religious  question  from  the  eco- 
nomic ;  the  two  are  one,  from  Moses  to  Jesus, 
from  Buddha  to  St.  Francis,  from  Wyckliffe  to 
the  present  time.  Emile  Zola  is  right  in  de- 
claring "that  an  economical  question  is  invari- 
ably hidden  beneath  each  religious  evolution, 
and  that,  upon  the  whole,  the  everlasting  evil, 
the  everlasting  struggle,  has  never  been  aught 
but  one  between  the  rich  and  the  poor."  The 
life  of  man    is   objectively    an    economic   life, 


THE   CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  l8l 

grounded  in  religion,  and  showing  forth  its  fun- 
damental faith  in  political  conditions.  As  I 
have  already  said,  political  corruption  is  the 
overflow  of  economic  corruption  ;  and  behind 
economic  corruption  lies  an  inadequate  and 
unethical  religious  experience  and  organiza- 
tion. 

But  there  are  some  who  feel  the  need  of  this 
religious  movement  most  deeply,  and  who  wait 
for  its  coming  most  intently,  who  will  yet  nobly 
object  to  my  association  of  the  economic  prob- 
lem with  the  name  and  teachings  of  Jesus.  The 
idea  is  gaining  ground,  among  pure  and  heroic 
men  and  women,  ready  to  lay  down  their  lives 
for  the  brethren,  that  we  must  give  up  the 
Christian  terminology,  in  order  to  procure  the 
great  human  movement  toward  a  co-operative 
society.  Largely  because  of  the  attitude  of 
professional  Christianity,  there  is  subtly  at  work 
the  same  deadly  scepticism  that  wrought  such 
disaster  in  France,  both  before  and  after  the 
Revolution.  It  is  bearing  the  social  leadership 
of  our  nation  toward  the  same  abyss.  And  to 
maintain  one's  integrity  of  faith  against  the 
social  unfaith  of  organized  religion  on  one  side, 
and  against  the  doubt  of  that  faith  on  the  part 
of  holy  servants  of  men  on  the  other,  is  some- 
times the  most  strenuous  spiritual  test  of  those 


1 82  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

who  believe  that  the  name  of  Jesus  is  able  to 
summon  mankind  to  the  social  task. 

It  is  true  that  I  speak  as  one  who  believes 
that  Jesus  disclosed  elemental  and  universal 
principles  of  life  :  principles  which  not  only  give 
us  a  social  ideal  and  philosophy,  but  which  are 
capable  of  practical  realization.  The  feeling 
deepens  with  me  that  we  shall  not  have  social 
rest,  nor  a  harmonious  and  happy  progress,  until 
we  adopt  these  principles  as  a  law  and  mode  of 
society.  But  I  do  not  appeal  to  Jesus  because 
I  wish  to  claim  for  him  any  superimposed  au- 
thority, or  in  order  to  convert  any  one  to  what 
is  known  as  the  Christian  religion.  I  am  quite 
aware  that  other  teachers  and  religions,  that 
philosophers  and  modern  sciences,  have  reached 
many  of  the  same  ideas  and  principles  that  Jesus 
reached.  I  am  sure  that  many  will  come  in 
other  names  than  his,  from  the  east  and  the 
west,  from  many  points  of  view  and  schools  of 
thought,  from  fields  of  noblest  effort  and  highest 
sacrifice,  to  sit  down  with  him  in  the  realized 
kingdom  of  God.  But  I  think  that  all  will  agree 
that  he  more  vividly  generalized  certain  great 
truths,  and  that  he  more  fully  focussed  them  in 
his  life,  than  any  other  teacher  or  personality 
we  know.  It  is  just  because  that  Jesus  gathered 
up  and  dramatized  what  is  common  to  the  world's 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  1 83 

best  thought  and  highest  aspiration  that  I  ap- 
peal to  him.  My  interest  is  in  human  life,  its 
meaning  and  destiny  ;  and  I  turn  to  Jesus  be- 
cause of  his  matchless  interpretation  of  life  and 
its  problems.  I  find  no  other  interpretation 
which  offers  so  universal  a  basis  for  that  re- 
ligion which  the  social  conscience  craves. 

Now,  the  most  significant  fact  of  the  hour  is 
the  appeal  of  the  social  conscience  from  Chris- 
tianity to  Christ.  The  rising  faith  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  discernment  of  both  scientific  and 
economic  prophets  are  alike  turning  to  Jesus, 
while  turning  from  the  church.  To  the  Chris- 
tian religion  and  its  official  attitude,  there  is  the 
strongest  antipathy  and  social  distrust;  for  Je- 
sus, there  is  an  increasing  reverence  and  social 
loyalty,  having  in  it  heroic  elements,  and  strong 
enough  to  call  churchless  men  to  martyrdom 
for  his  name's  sake.  Not  long  ago,  no  less  a 
materialist  than  Professor  Lombroso  expressed 
his  conviction  that  the  solution  of  the  anti- 
Semitic  and  social  problems  lies  in  a  new  re- 
ligion, "  which  should  take  as  its  standard  the 
new  social  ideas  which  Christ  has  already 
preached  ; "  it  would  be  a  "  neo-Christian  so- 
cialism," in  which  Jews  and  Christians  might 
at  last  unite.  "God  only  knows  the  remedy," 
said  Louis  Kossuth,  speaking  sadly  and  gloomily 


I §4  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

of  "the  manifold  crimes  which  society  has  com- 
mitted against  the  people  ; "  but  "  if  the  doc- 
trines of  Christianity,  which  are  found  in  the 
New  Testament,  could  be  applied  to  home  so- 
ciety," he  said,  "  I  believe  the  solution  of  the 
social  problem  could  be  got  at." 

But  we  can  have  no  such  revival  as  that  for 
which  we  wait,  until  we  have  in  mind  a  clear 
distinction  between  the  Christian  life  and  the 
life  that  is  conventionally  religious.  There  can 
be  no  more  reckless  or  mischievous  misuse  of 
language  than  the  indiscriminate  way  in  which 
the  term  Christian  is  used.  To  accept  the  ex- 
isting Christian  religion  may  be  very  remote 
from  accepting  Christ  and  the  order  of  things 
for  which  he  stood.  A  man  may  be  devout, 
generous,  good,  and  just,  according  to  the  best 
current  standards  of  the  church,  and  yet  be  in 
no  sense  a  follower  of  Christ.  The  Christian 
life  is  not  in  our  creeds  as  a  theory,  much  less 
in  our  practice  as  a  Christian  society.  It  is  not 
in  our  religious  doctrines,  much  less  in  our  life. 
The  church  does  not  even  profess  faith  in  Christ 
in  the  sense  of  taking  him  at  his  word,  and 
believing  his  life  livable  and  workable  in  the 
world.  I  know  of  no  church  that  requires  or 
expects,  or  that  pretends  to  require  or  expect, 
that    its   members    shall    really    do   the  things 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  1 85 

which  Christ  commanded.  "The  disastrous 
results  of  a  diffusion  of  Christianity  at  the  cost 
of  its  intensity,"  says  Canon  Gore,  "  is  very  ap- 
parent to  those  of  us  who  are  greatly  interested 
in  the  social  problems  of  the  present  moment." 
"  How  is  it,"  he  asks,  "  that  we  have  reached  a 
condition  of  things  when  men  cannot  only  utter, 
as  multitudes  of  men  always  have  done,  the 
maxims  of  worldliness  and  selfishness,  but  utter 
these  maxims  without  any  sense  that,  by  simply 
giving  expression  to  them,  they  are  repudiating 
Christianity,  as  far  as  words  go  quite  as  really 
as  if  they  were  denying  the  Christian  creed,  or 
as  if  in  the  old  days  of  persecution  they  had 
offered  incense  to  the  divinity  of  the  Roman 
emperor  ? " 

In  a  profound  sense,  the  religion  of  Jesus  is 
coming  upon  the  world  as  practically  a  new  reve- 
lation. In  the  discussions  which  have  come  and 
gone  with  the  centuries,  in  the  theological  bat- 
tles in  which  councils  and  kings,  imperial  armies 
and  massacred  peoples,  have  played  their  part, 
the  essential  question  of  the  religion  of  Jesus 
has  not  been  touched ;  nor  has  it  been  touched 
by  either  the  vulgar  or  the  scholarly  debates 
between  so-called  believers  and  so-called  infidels. 
The  debates  and  wars  of  the  church  have  been 
over  questions  that  are  not  essential,  so  far  as 


1 86  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

Jesus  is  concerned  ;  they  have  been  about  things 
that  have  nothing  to  do  with  his  religion  and 
programme.  The  real  proposition  of  Christian- 
ity is  this  :  that  love  is  the  elemental  law  of 
being,  in  God,  in  man,  in  nature.  No  man,  no 
philosophy,  no  religion,  has  ever  disputed  the 
law  of  love ;  no  scepticism  has  ever  argued 
against  it.  To  destroy  Christianity,  we  would 
have  to  destroy  the  law  of  love ;  to  believe  and 
practise  Christianity,  we  must  believe  and  prac- 
tise the  law  of  love.  And  love  has  as  yet  had 
so  little  to  do  with  the  motives  that  direct  social 
organization,  that  we  have  no  data  by  which  to 
determine  what  society  might  be  under  its  rule. 
"The  power  of  love  has  been  but  meanly  and 
sparingly  applied,"  says  Thoreau  ;  "it  has  pa- 
tented only  such  machines  as  the  almshouse, 
the  hospital,  and  the  Bible  Society,  while  its 
infinite  wind  is  still  blowing,  and  blowing  down 
those  very  structures,  too,  from  time  to  time." 
To  bring  Christ  "  into  history,  to  found  on  him 
the  relations  of  the  people,  to  create  the  love  of 
our  neighbor  in  the  historical  sense,  —  that  is 
the  mission  "  which  Sienkiewicz  sees  before  his 
Slavic  world,  and  which  we  may  see  as  the  mis- 
sion of  all  who  have  grasped  the  thought  of  love 
as  law. 

Jesus  did  not  make  the  law  of  love,  but  it 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  1 87 

made  him  ;  he  simply  interpreted  and  drama- 
tized the  love  which  had  always  been  the  law  of 
all  being,  whether  he  had  come  into  the  world 
or  not  —  the  law  which  never  had  a  beginning 
and  which  can  never  have  an  ending.  It  is  the 
law  which  has  always  governed  man,  whether 
he  knew  it  or  not,  whether  he  would  have  it 
govern  him  or  not  ;  only  man  has  compelled  love 
to  govern  him  retributively,  instead  of  through 
his  willing  acceptance  of  its  rule.  It  is  this  law 
of  love  that  the  cross  stands  for ;  and  it  is  this 
which  is  bringing  Christ  into  conflict  with  the 
Christianity  which  claims  his  name. 

Christianity  began,  so  far  as  it  issued  from 
Jesus,  not  as  a  new  religion,  but  as  a  mode  of 
living  by  this  law  of  love.  In  religion  as  a 
thing  in  itself  Jesus  was  not  interested  ;  rather, 
he  looked  with  profound  distrust  upon  what  was 
then,  and  is  now,  both  officially  and  popularly 
understood  by  religion.  Religious  forms  and 
dogmas  he  regarded  as  of  little  consequence, 
except  as  they  darkened  and  oppressed  human 
life.  A  religious  cult  was  something  he  could 
not  tolerate ;  an  official  religion  was  an  usurpa- 
tion. Religion  as  a  thing  in  itself,  as  an  absor- 
bent of  life,  was  to  him  the  worst  blasphemy,  a 
cruel  and  outrageous  imposition.  He  presented 
no  system  of  religion  for  acceptance,  and  noth- 


1 88  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

ing  indicates  that  he  came  expecting  to  found 
a  new  religion.  Neither  the  people  who  heard 
him  gladly,  nor  the  disciples  who  followed  him, 
had  any  thought  that  a  new  religion  was  being 
founded.  It  was  human  life  that  interested 
Jesus,  and  that  seemed  to  him,  even  at  its  worst, 
to  be  the  sacred  matter  of  concern.  Every 
phase  and  expression  of  life  caught  and  held  his 
attention  to  the  point  of  intensest  fascination. 
Forming  no  cult  of  worship,  in  fact  avoiding 
such  as  the  most  deadly  moral  fatality,  his  bless- 
ing was  upon  those  who  divinely  gave  themselves 
to  the  service  of  humanity.  "As  I  understand 
it,"  says  Amiel,  "  Christianity  is  above  all  reli- 
gions, and  religion  is  not  a  method,  it  is  a  life." 
Human  life  is  the  real  presence  of  God  which 
Jesus  taught  men  to  see  and  worship. 

Jesus  had  nothing  occult  or  transcendental, 
mysterious  or  supernatural,  to  teach.  Although 
we  idly  distinguish  between  natural  and  re- 
vealed religion,  it  was  to  show  natural  religion 
as  right  relations  that  Jesus  taught  and  worked. 
The  spirituality  of  the  natural,  the  naturalness 
of  the  spiritual,  the  social  oneness  and  ethical 
sympathy  of  spirit  and  nature,  was  the  ground 
of  his  faith.  To  have  proposed  a  supernatural 
mode  of  life  directly  opposed  to  the  natural 
organism  in  which  it    was    to    be  lived   would 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  1 89 

rtave  been  moral  insanity.  To  rid  the  human 
mind  of  the  distinction  between  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural  —  a  primitive  pagan  su- 
perstition which  still  clings  to  us  —  was  one  of 
Jesus'  most  faithful  efforts.  He  knew  that 
this  false  distinction  was  fatal  to  sane  or  right 
relations ;  V_at  it  was  the  ground  upon  which 
official  religion  built  its  tyrannies.  It  was  the 
superstition  that  peopled  the  unseen  world  with 
demi-gods,  invested  priestcrafts  with  their 
authority,  forever  hiding  the  face  of  God  from 
his  people,  keeping  man  ignorant  of  his  divine 
sonship.  To  show  forth  his  own  divine  son- 
ship  as  the  natural  life  of  man,  with  the  brother- 
hood it  brought  as  the  normal  human  order,  was 
to  Jesus  an  unfailing  inspiration. 

He  put  life  before  men  as  an  unending  spirit- 
ual adventure  and  discovery.  He  invested 
the  pursuit  of  righteousness  with  a  fascination 
which  no  romance  has  ever  given  to  an  absorb- 
ing love.  He  made  goodness  supremely  attrac- 
tive, from  whatever  source  it  came.  He  made 
truth  a  glorious  quest,  through  whatever  depths 
the  quest  led  him.  The  only  people  he  seemed 
unable  to  tolerate  were  the  virtuous  who  had 
lost  their  enthusiasm.  He  had  a  deep-seated 
aversion  for  what  we  call  moderation.  He 
could  get  along  with  almost  anybody,  or  any- 


190  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

thing,  except  the  "judicious,"  the  "  impartial," 
and  the  "safe."  The  respectable  moral  dull- 
ness of  professional  religion  he  abhorred  as 
wickedness  in  its  worst  and  stupidest  disguise. 
If  a  man  could  not  find  a  righteousness  that 
exceeded  the  best  current  righteousness,  then 
he  was  not  interested  in  righteousness  at  all, 
and  could  in  no  wise  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  To  be  content  with  the  existing  order 
of  things,  was  downright  apostasy  and  atheism, 
from  Jesus'  point  of  view. 

Yet  we  must  not  mistake  Jesus  for  a  mere 
teacher  of  ethics,  either  individual  or  social. 
While  no  teacher  is  so  ethical  as  Jesus,  he 
never  dreamed  of  presenting  a  mere  system  of 
ethics,  or  even  of  giving  a  final  ethic.  A  sys- 
tem of  ethics  can  have  only  a  relative  ethical 
value.  Obedience  to  ethics  may  not  result  in 
an  ethical  life,  and  it  is  as  idle  to  assume  that 
God  has  given  a  final  revelation  of  ethics  as  to 
suppose  that  he  has  given  a  final  revelation  of 
astronomy  or  theology.  It  is  the  unfolding 
life  alone  that  is  ethical,  and  life  increases  only 
to  know  a  better  ethic  to-day  than  it  knew  yes- 
terday. It  was  as  a  teacher  of  elemental  life 
and  law  that  Jesus  came. 

He  did  not  come  as  one  teaching  something 
new  so  much  as  one  unfolding  what  was  old  ; 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  191 

he  came  as  an  interpreter  of  what  had  been  the 
human  meaning  of  religion  from  its  beginning. 
Many  of  his  sayings  are  an  assimilation  and 
living  reproduction,  a  rich  bloom  and  perfect 
fruit,  of  what  was  best  and  hid  in  current 
Hebrew  teaching.  He  had  abundantly  fed  his 
spirit  upon  the  thought  of  the  later  Isaiah,  and 
had  formed  his  ideals  in  part  from  that  prophet's 
glowing  visions  of  the  redeemed  nation,  leading 
the  world  into  a  regenerated  civilization.  He 
talked  in  an  ethical  and  social  language  that  was 
then  no  more  unknown  to  the  Hebrew  church 
than  it  is  now  unknown,  in  another  way,  to  the 
Christian  church.  It  was  the  language  of  the 
redeemed  society,  calling  men  to  repentance  as 
the  condition  of  its  realization  ;  the  tongue  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  calling  men  to  a  new 
moral  birth  as  the  first  condition  of  citizenship. 
In  neither  Old  nor  New  Testament,  does  the 
term  kingdom  of  God,  or  kingdom  of  heaven, 
mean  other  than  a  righteous  society  upon  the 
earth.  It  was  the  term  commonly  used  to  sig- 
nify social  justice  —  a  justice  to  be  fully  realized 
when  the  Messiah  should  come.  It  was  ex- 
pected that  he,  whenever  he  came  or  whoever 
he  proved  to  be,  would  bring  in  an  order  so  just, 
so  free  from  oppression  and  righteous  in  free- 
dom, that  it  would  be  nothing  else  than  the 


192  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

direct  reign  of  God  in  human  affairs,  the  mani- 
fest and  indisputable  setting  up  of  his  govern- 
ment in  the  world.  While  Jesus'  ideal  of  the 
kingdom  was  surpassingly  purer  than  the  popu- 
lar or  orthodox  ideal,  and  his  conception  of  the 
kingdom's  law  and  method  radically  different, 
it  was  none  the  less  this  same  kingdom  of 
heaven  he  came  to  initiate ;  it  was  a  social  de- 
liverance that  he  brought.  He  did  not  expect, 
nor  did  he  once  lead  the  people  to  expect,  any- 
thing other  than  the  realization  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  as  a  holy  society  of  universal  justice. 
His  interpretations  of  the  kingdom  have  far 
more  to  do  with  relations,  with  social  facts  and 
forces,  than  with  what  we  understand  by  reli- 
gion. His  teachings  disclose  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  not  only  a  subjective  condition,  a  state 
of  mind,  but  as  an  objective  and  perfectly  or- 
ganized society.  They  furnish  not  only  a  social 
ideal,  but  a  working  principle  and  a  dynamic  for 
its  realization.  They  deal  more  specifically 
with  questions  of  economic  equity,  and  far  more 
frequently  with  the  subject  of  property,  than 
we  care  to  know.  It  could  not  be  otherwise, 
with  the  early  Christian  apostolate  borne  on  by 
Jesus'  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  heavenly 
economy  of  the  earthly  life,  with  all  its  things 
and  persons. 


THE   CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  I93 

For  the  redemption  of  human  life  to  this 
kingdom,  Jesus  endured  the  cross,  with  his 
glorious  disgrace,  and  gained  the  secret  of 
power.  Through  the  knowledge  that  his  broken 
life  and  shed  blood  would  be  the  living  meat 
and  drink  of  the  world,  that  out  of  the  travail 
of  his  soul  would  finally  issue  the  salvation  of 
the  righteous  society,  he  carried  with  joy  the 
shame  heaped  upon  him  by  a  faithless  church 
and  nation.  For  this  he  drank  his  cup  of  sor- 
row to  the  dregs,  bore  without  murmuring  the 
sufferings  by  which  he  learned  obedience,  and 
went  shelterless  into  the  assailing  storms  of 
avenging  evil.  The  righting  of  wrong,  the 
realization  of  the  brotherhood,  was  the  sancti- 
fying motive  that  raised  him  to  the  moral  glory 
of  the  cross,  and  makes  his  sacrifice  the  world's 
highest  social  revelation. 

The  age  that  finally  changed  the  revelation 
of  Jesus  from  a  social  ideal  to  an  official  reli- 
gion, from  a  mode  of  life  to  a  theological  system, 
was  one  of  moral  and  religious  anarchy,  insanely 
wicked  and  licentious.  It  is  a  strange  thing, 
but  not  so  strange  as  the  small  account  we 
make  of  it,  that  the  great  councils  that  formu- 
lated the  church's  system  of  truth  were  com- 
posed of  members  from  whom  the  sense  of 
truth  had  almost  died   out.     The  facts  about 


194  BETWEEN   CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

their  riots   of    creeds  and   destroying   factions 
we  probably  can  never  know.     As  Dean  Farrar 
says,  with  reference  to  this  time,  "  we  can  never 
trust  the  accounts  given  either  of  the  opinions 
or  characters  of  men  by  their  theological  oppo- 
nents."     The  Nicene  council,  which  laid   the 
foundation  for  all  subsequent  theology,  was  so 
without  sense  of  right  and  human  honor,  as  to 
appall  even  the  ethical  decency  of  Constantine, 
who  scarcely  pretended   to   be    other  than  an 
atheist  as  to  morals  and  a  sceptic  as  to  faith, 
though  fabled  the  first  Christian  emperor.     It 
is  a  far  downward  journey  from  Jesus  to  Atha- 
nasius,  farther  than  from  Athanasius  to  either 
Hildebrand  or  Calvin.     When  the  philosophers 
of  Alexandria  and  Athens  finally  got  the  Chris- 
tian directorate,  and  the  Roman  upper  classes 
began   to  make   Christianity  a  fad,  its  spring- 
time of  moral  glory  had  gone,  while  the  sum- 
mer  was    soon  ended,  and  the  long  winter  of 
the  faith  of  Jesus  began.     The  organized  cult 
of  worship,  the  great  ethnic  religion,  that  has 
grown  up  bearing  his  name,  is  something  that 
Jesus  never  contemplated.     We  need  not  call 
it  evil,  and  doubtless  it  was  an  inevitable  his- 
torical process  in  the  evolution  of  the  universal 
society  and  religion.     But  it  is  foreign,  and  in 
a  large  measure  antagonistic,  to  the  idea  and 
outlook  of  Jesus. 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  1 95 

Of  course,  the  church  has  been  receiving 
moral  discipline,  yet  to  bear  its  best  fruit,  during 
these  centuries  of  wandering  in  the  wilderness 
of  theology  and  ecclesiastical  politics.  But  this 
wilderness,  in  which  we  still  wander  among  the 
bones  of  our  fathers,  is  not  the  land  of  social 
promise  which  Jesus  viewed  for  his  nation,  and 
his  human  race.  Though  men  know  not  what 
they  see,  and  see  it  dimly  yet,  the  recovery  of 
Christianity  from  the  system  of  religion  im- 
posed upon  it  by  Greek  theology  and  Roman 
law,  from  the  baneful  moral  and  social  effects 
which  this  system  has  so  deeply  wrought,  with 
the  restoration  of  the  idea  of  Jesus  to  Christen- 
dom, is  the  process  now  at  work  in  society,  and 
is  the  beatific  vision  mightily  and  hopefully 
attracting  the  common  life  to  a  wider  and 
nobler  faith.  "Jesus  will  always  supply  us 
with  the  best  criticism  of  Christianity,"  says 
Amiel ;  "  and  when  Christianity  has  passed  away 
the  religion  of  Jesus  will  in  all  probability 
survive." 

Before  Jesus  can  have  his  day  and  social  way, 
there  will  have  to  be  done  for  Christianity  what 
Jesus  did  for  Judaism.  The  Christian  religion 
we  know  is  not  the  religion  of  Jesus  ;  he  is 
no  more  the  author  of  existing  Christianity 
than  Moses  was  the  author  of  the  Judaism  out 


196  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

of  which  Christianity  was  born.  The  sum  of 
what  is  taught  and  practised  as  his  religion 
represents  Jesus  in  only  the  most  meagre  sense, 
and  in  a  large  sense  represents  the  things  his 
soul  hated  ;  the  things  he  came  to  save  men 
from.  We  preach  in  his  name  the  things  he 
did  not  preach,  while  the  things  he  preached, 
as  well  as  the  things  for  which  his  name  really 
stood,  we  leave  unproclaimed.  The  pulpits  in 
which  the  ministry  of  Jesus'  actual  word  would 
be  tolerated  are  few  and  scarcely  representa- 
tive. The  church  has  become  of  the  world, 
even  as  Jesus  was  not  of  the  world.  It  has  lost 
its  power  of  moral  appeal,  and  has  no  programme 
of  faith  to  offer  the  social  cry.  It  is  impotent 
to  effect  the  social  synthesis,  or  to  initiate  the 
religious  movement  which  alone  can  bring  social 
salvation.  Social  things  which  are  the  worst 
abomination  in  the  sight  of  God  are  not  more 
highly  esteemed  in  the  world  than  in  the  church. 
It  is  to  the  church,  rather  than  to  the  world, 
that  the  cross  has  become  foolishness,  in 
this  day  of  material  values  and  measurements. 
There  is  practically  no  organized  effort  to  put 
into  practice  the  mode  of  life  which  Jesus 
initiated  as  redemption ;  no  real  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  church  as  a  whole  to  learn,  much 
less  to  preach   or  to  practise,  Jesus'  religious 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  1 97 

idea  or  social  ideal.  The  problem  of  getting 
Christianity,  or  the  church,  to  accept  Christ  is 
the  most  momentous  difficulty  which  the  social 
situation  presents.  "  The  socialistic  theories," 
says  Dr.  Edwin  D.  Hatch,  "which  formulate 
in  modern  language  and  justify  by  modern  con- 
ceptions such  an  exhortation  as  '  Sell  what  thou 
hast  and  give  to  the  poor,'  meet  with  no  less 
opposition  within  than  without  the  Christian 
societies."  "  The  conversion  of  the  church  to 
Christian  theory,"  he  says,  "  must  precede  the 
conversion  of  the  world  to  Christian  practice." 
"  We  have,"  says  Herbert  Spencer,  "  a  thin 
layer  of  Christianity  overlying  a  thick  layer  of 
paganism.  Christianity  has  the  nominal  honor 
and  the  professed  obedience  ;  while  paganism 
is  nominally  discredited  but  practically  obeyed." 
It  is  this  antithesis  between  Christ  and  Chris- 
tianity which  leads  President  Tucker  to  declare 
that  the  arrest  of  foreign  missions  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  heathen  are  finding  us  out. 

In  saying  that  the  religious  ideal  prevailing 
in  the  church  must  have  an  end,  I  do  not 
denounce  the  church,  or  question  the  effective 
faith  or  martyr-effort  it  has  wrought,  or  doubt 
the  noble  men  and  women  who  work  within  it, 
any  more  than  I  denounce  a  garment,  or  deny 
its  past  utility,  by  saying  that  it  is  worn  out, 


I98  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

and  that  a  fitter  and  more  useful  garment  can 
be  conceived  ;  I  merely  say  that  the  present 
organization  of  Christianity  has  done  its  work, 
however  great  its  value  as  an  historic  provision, 
and  that  it  is  hence  no  longer  adequate  and 
constructive,  but  rather  baffling  and  destruc- 
tive. To  conserve  the  present  religious  sys- 
tem in  the  face  of  the  social  epoch,  means 
death  to  faith,  and  anarchy  to  action.  To  con- 
tinue in  the  system  because  of  what  God  has 
wrought  through  it  in  the  past,  is  to  be  guilty 
of  the  very  apostasy  that  hurried  Jesus  to 
the  cross.  If  we,  at  this  moment  of  greatest 
human  effort  toward  righteousness,  suffer  the 
past  to  circumscribe  our  religious  thought  and 
social  faith,  we  are  recreant  to  the  Jesus  we 
worship  and  preach.  It  is  not  simply  that  we 
have  the  same  right  to  think  and  act  that 
Moses  and  Paul  had,  or  that  Athanasius  and 
Calvin  had,  but  that  we  are  under  the  same 
obligation  to  God  and  man  to  think  and  act  ; 
to  think  and  act,  too,  with  the  spiritual  adven- 
ture by  which  their  faith  achieved  progress. 
Only  that  spiritual  adventure  which  made 
Jesus  the  Christ,  which  spoke  by  the  mouths 
of  prophets  and  apostles,  which  has  prepared 
every  highway  of  progress,  can  save  the  church 
as  the  shrine  of  the  people. 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  1 99 

You  say  we  have  been  making  progress.  Of 
course.  For  some  thousands  of  years  the  world 
had  been  making  progress  before  Jesus  was 
crucified  by  "  the  conservatively  progressive." 
The  world  had  been  making  progress  before 
Bernard  and  Francis  came  ;  before  Huss  and 
Luther  arose ;  before  Oliver  Cromwell  was 
hurled  as  the  incarnate  judgment  of  God 
against  political  vice  and  religious  tyranny. 
The  world  had  been  making  progress  before 
the  French  Revolution  put  history  backward 
as  well  as  forward,  changing  the  shadow  of 
progress  on  the  dial  of  history.  When  the 
Hebrew  church  gave  birth  to  Christianity  the 
sun  grew  dark,  the  earth  trembled  like  a 
stricken  life,  the  natural  elements  articulated 
the  universal  travail,  the  dead  were  driven 
from  their  tombs  by  the  new  life,  and  the 
heart  of  God  was  broken.  Whether  the  social 
birth  be  a  universal  tragedy  or  a  universal 
harmony,  depends  on  whether  we  hide  our 
guilt  and  sloth  in  the  progress  bought  by  the 
shed  blood  of  the  past  lovers  of  man,  or 
whether  we  press  on  to  live  for  our  brethren 
and  the  social  future.  As  Dr.  Josiah  Strong 
says,  though  he  would  by  no  means  endorse 
my  application  of  his  saying,  we  have  only  to 
keep  on   making  our  present  kind  of  progress 


200  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

long    enough    and    our    destruction    is    inevit- 
able. 

The  present  attitude  of  the  church  cannot 
be  charged  against  the  clergy  alone;  it  is  quite 
as  much  the  fault  of  the  men  upon  whom  the 
clergymen  depend.  The  pastor  is  involved  in 
a  religious  system  which  has  become  thor- 
oughly dependent  upon  the  economic  system. 
In  fact,  almost  more  than  any  other  class,  the 
men  who  minister  from  our  pulpits  are  becom- 
ing the  helpless  victims  of  the  most  brutal 
intimidations  of  money  interests.  If  they 
preach  the  truth  which  Jesus  preached,  they 
will  disrupt  their  congregations,  destroy  their 
own  reputations,  and  will  be  practically  black- 
listed by  the  churches.  Long  years  of  prepa- 
ration are  required  for  their  calling,  and  the 
financial  returns  to  ability  are  small.  Help- 
less economic  dependence  is  not  a  good  school 
in  which  to  train  men  for  spiritual  boldness 
and  liberty.  With  the  doors  of  the  church 
closed  against  him,  after  years  of  preparation, 
and  with  a  dependent  family  about  him,  it  is 
not  wonderful  that  the  pastor  seeks  truth  in 
the  terms  of  the  existing  order.  Yet,  notwith- 
standing all  this,  some  of  the  best  social  agita- 
tion of  America  is  proceeding  from  the  young 
men  in  the  pulpits,  or  from  young  men  who 


THE    CONFLICT  OF   CHRIST.  201 

have  been  trained  for  its  ministry.  The  most 
eager  listeners  to  social  discussions,  and  the 
most  anxious  inquirers,  are  the  pastors.  It  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say  that  probably  a  hundred 
clergymen  are  studying  the  social  problem, 
where  one  politician  has  given  it  any  consider- 
ation, or  has  even  remotely  heard  of  it.  Here 
in  Chicago,  the  various  ministerial  associations 
will  invite  the  labor  leader,  the  socialist,  the 
philosophical  anarchist,  to  come  and  address 
them  ;  I  do  not  hear  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
or  any  of  the  various  commercial  associations, 
doing  anything  of  this  sort.  There  is  a  saying 
in  Italy  to  the  effect  that  there  has  never  been 
a  revolution  in  Europe  without  a  monk  at  the 
bottom  of  it  ;  and  when  the  social  crisis  culmi- 
nates here  in  America,  you  will  find  behind  it 
the  hundreds  of  young  ministers  of  the  gospel 
who  are  getting  ready  to  throw  away  their 
churches,  their  reputations,  and  their  lives  if 
it  need  be,  in  order  to  follow  Christ  in  the 
social  redemption  that  is  to  set  the  people  free. 
Whether  the  church  go  with  them  or  not,  they 
will  go  with  Christ,  and  share  with  him  the  fate 
of  the  people. 

So  we  come  back  again  to  where  this  lecture 
began :  to  the  economic  question  as  the  su- 
preme question  which  Christianity  has  now  to 


202  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

answer.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  social 
crisis  the  crisis  of  the  organized  religion  which 
bears  Christ's  name.  Without  regard  to  the 
institutions  of  Christianity,  the  question  as  to 
whether  love  is  law  is  the  field  on  which  the 
economic  battle  is  to  be  fought  out.  If  the 
church  would  furnish  the  faith  which  the  people 
crave,  and  deal  with  the  human  fact  we  now  con- 
front, it  must  bring  forth  a  new  Christian  syn- 
thesis, in  the  form  of  an  economic  statement  of 
the  teachings  of  Jesus  —  an  economic  of  his  law 
of  love.  It  must  accept  the  full  logic  of  his 
teachings,  with  all  the  communism  and  the  lib- 
erty from  institutional  authority  which  these 
teachings  mean,  if  it  would  absolve  mankind 
from  social  guilt.  It  must  call  this  civilization 
to  Christ's  judgment  seat,  or  it  will  itself  recede, 
and  a  new  form  of  Christianity  arise  from  the 
midst  of  the  people.  'If  the  church  is  in  such 
relations  to  the  existing  order,  and  is  so  de- 
pendent on  its  money,  that  it  cannot  examine 
the  social  titles  of  organized  wealth,  nor  cry 
aloud  and  spare  not  against  our  political  and 
economic  crimes,  then  the  sceptre  of  redemp- 
tion will  pass  from  it,  and  a  new  redemptive 
organ  will  arise. 

Whatever  becomes  of  the   church,  the  new 
social  faith  in  Christ  comes  not  to  destroy,  but 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  203 

to  fulfil  the  church's  present  and  past  history  ; 
only  the  church's  fear  and  conservatism  can 
destroy  it.  "The  necessary  revolution  which 
would  change  the  spirit  of  Christianity  without 
changing  a  dogma,  a  rite,  a  priestly  gesture," 
says  James  Darmsteter,  "would  make  of  the 
church  —  now  an  obstacle  —  a  living  force." 
"  On  that  day,"  he  says,  when  the  words  of  the 
prophets  and  of  Christ  are  again  heard  from 
the  pulpit,  "  will  the  church  take  a  new  lease 
of  life,  and  be  able  to  assume  once  more  the 
supreme  direction  of  human  society."  It  is  to 
this  end  that  the  new  social  faith  has  asked 
the  church  to  lose  its  present  life  in  the  cause 
and  service  of  the  people.  It  sees,  what  the 
religionist  and  the  sceptic  alike  see,  what  in- 
dustrial wrong  and  political  craft  fear,  that  if 
the  idea  of  Jesus  should  once  be  given  an 
economic  interpretation,  and  again  be  taken 
with  apostolic  seriousness,  with  an  organized 
initiative  and  support,  there  would  be  an  end 
of  the  civilization  which  now  exists.  This  so- 
cial faith  sees,  too,  that  if  the  men  who  cry  so 
devoutly  for  "the  simple  gospel,"  whenever  the 
industrial  problem  is  approached  in  the  name  of 
Jesus,  were  once  to  hear  that  gospel,  they  would 
cry  for  almost  anything  else  under  heaven. 
But    "the    application  of   the  gospel    must  be 


204  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

made,"  wrote  Dr.  George  B.  Cheever  in  1857; 
"nor  is  there  any  time  to  be  lost,  since  the  argu- 
ment of  possession,  custom,  and  law  is  every- 
day growing  stronger."  "If  the  probing"  of 
"every  dear,  cherished,  fashionable  evil,"  he 
says,  "occasions  agitation,  anger,  strife,  that 
very  thing  is  the  proof  of  so  dealing  with  it,  and 
if  it  is  warmly  contested  not  to  be  an  evil  nor  a 
sin,  that  itself  just  clearly  shows  the  danger 
and  ruin  of  letting  it  alone  and  the  necessity  of 
pouring  the  light  of  God's  word  upon  it.  If  it 
be  interwoven  with  the  politics  of  the  state  and 
of  society,  so  much  the  more  hazardous  to  med- 
dle with  it,  but  so  much  the  more  necessary." 

But,  after  all,  what  becomes  of  the  church  is 
really  not  an  important  question  ;  it  is  the  de- 
velopment and  freedom  of  human  life  that  is 
alone  important.  God  is  not  dependent  upon 
the  present  organization  of  Christianity  to  save 
the  world  ;  and  man  and  truth  do  not  exist  for 
the  sake  of  building  and  perpetuating  institu- 
tions. An  institution  of  religion  is  inherently 
a  spiritual  aristocracy,  and  can  have  no  place 
in  a  pure  democracy,  except  to  remain  as  a 
shrine  for  those  who  need  it.  John  saw  no 
temple  in  the  perfected  humanity,  and  Jesus 
taught  that  worship  consists  in  spirit  and  in 
life,  and  not  in  locality  or  institution. 


THE   CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  205 

The  peoples  are  turning  away  from  the 
churches,  not  because  they  are  becoming  less 
religious,  but  because  they  are  becoming  more 
religious,  more  reverent  toward  God  and  man  ; 
because  the  meaning  of  religion  is  at  last  being 
disclosed  in  the  relations  of  the  common  life. 
The  religious  movement  for  which  we  hope 
will  not  be  hostile  to  the  church  ;  indeed,  it  will 
probably  move  on  almost  in  ignorance  of  the 
church's  existence.  It  will  be  a  distinctly  human 
revival,  drawing  its  motives  and  supports  from 
human  need  and  yearnings.  It  will  have  little 
or  nothing  to  do  with  the  church,  but  will  have 
everything  to  do  with  human  life  as  the  real 
presence  of  God.  It  will  displace  our  wanton 
distrust  of  moral  enthusiasm  with  a  passion  for 
righteousness  so  sacred  as  to  again  be  called 
the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  will  come 
with  the  joy  of  the  springtime,  a  new  religion 
springing  from  the  human  soil,  and  that  because 
Christ  is  in  the  soil. 

If  there  is  not  in  the  people  a  spiritual  reserve 
sufficient  to  bring  forth  such  a  religious  move- 
ment, then  the  social  revolution  will  doubtless 
come  through  force  instead  of  love.  I  thor- 
oughly believe  and  advocate  Jesus'  doctrine  of 
non-resistance.  I  am  opposed  to  war  in  every 
form,   military,  industrial,   or  theological.     But 


206  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

a  mere  conservatism  always  compels  progress 
to  make  its  way  through  conflict  and  tragedy. 
"  The  stubborn  opponents  of  reform  are  invari- 
ably the  real  parents  of  revolution,"  says  Kos- 
suth. If  Christianity  cannot  be  made  to  see  the 
day  of  its  visitation,  nor  be  persuaded  to  accept 
its  messianic  opportunity,  God  may  conclude 
that  revolution  of  the  sort  that  wrested  the 
Great  Charter  from  King  John,  or  wrote  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  would  be  nation- 
ally healthier  than  the  moral  apathy  with  which 
we  tolerate  organized  money,  from  the  money 
lords  of  the  Senate  down  to  the  rural  legislator, 
to  prostitute  every  sacred  national  interest,  to 
debauch  every  holy  national  function,  for  private 
and  corporate  profit. 

We  Americans  have  yet  to  learn  from  Jesus 
that  love  alone  is  the  fulfilling  of  liberty ;  that 
the  social  service,  not  the  material  gain  of  the 
individual,  is  the  end  of  freedom.  Our  national 
wealth,  in  which  we  ignorantly  glory,  has  be- 
come both  spiritual  and  economic  poverty,  and 
faithlessness  to  trust  has  become  with  us  a  na- 
tional characteristic.  Our  mad  individualism, 
now  heavy  with  the  conscience  of  Cain,  has 
fastened  upon  us  such  tyrannies  that  the  eco- 
nomic problem  is  now  with  us  a  problem  of 
national  existence.     The  problem  of  American 


THE   CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST  207 

law  and  liberty  is  a  problem  of  how  to  realize 
the  love  of  Christ  as  industrial  and  social  law. 

Whether  we  would  have  it  so  or  not,  Jesus 
holds  the  key  to  the  social  situation,  and  the 
initiative  is  his.  From  his  cross,  his  ideal  has 
passed  into  the  vision  of  humanity,  and  is  now 
the  richest  social  value  in  possession  of  the 
race.  With  each  crisis  and  change,  the  out- 
lines of  his  kingdom  of  heaven  appear  more 
distinct  amidst  the  world's  thought  and  activity. 
After  all  that  has  come  and  gone,  he  remains 
the  most  interesting  and  fascinating,  the  sweet- 
est and  strongest,  the  most  wholly  human  figure 
we  know.  His  simple,  matchless  figure  is  still 
the  world's  greatest  moral  attraction.  He  has 
suffered  always,  as  he  suffers  still,  in  the  house 
of  his  official  friends  ;  in  monstrous  frameworks 
of  hard,  unsympathetic  and  unsocial  systems  ; 
in  cruel  doctrines  of  God,  and  wicked  doctrines 
of  man.  Yet  he  lives,  and  grows  in  stature 
and  in  favor  with  men.  We  love  him,  we  cling 
to  him,  as  the  bone  of  our  bone,  the  flesh  of  our 
flesh,  the  soul  of  our  soul,  the  light  of  our  social 
future.  As  we  behold  him  praying,  on  his  last 
mortal  evening,  for  peace  and  power  to  drink 
all  his  cup,  to  finish  all  his  work,  we  feel  that 
here  is  one  who  has  found  perfect  poise,  found 
eternal  ground  for  human  hope,  in  what  is  ele- 


208  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

mental  and  universal.  Who  he  was,  how  he 
came  to  be  what  he  was,  what  we  are  to  do  with 
his  idea,  what  is  to  be  the  end  of  what  he  did, 
—  these  are  still  questions  of  absorbing  con- 
tent, affecting  as  no  other  the  destiny  of  the 
race.  As  never  before,  the  feet  of  Jesus  stand 
solid  in  the  human  fact,  and  his  hands  are  in  the 
human  clay,  with  his  ideal  the  mould  in  which 
God  will  cast  and  recast  our  social  forms  and 
unmake  and  remake  our  human  facts,  until 
made  perfect  in  that  ideal. 

But  let  us  not  seek  the  living  among  the 
dead,  as  many  devout  souls  would  have  us  do. 
The  Christ  we  need  is  not  in  the  tomb  of  meta- 
physics, where  theology  has  stood  guard  these 
many  ages,  obedient  to  ambition  in  the  church, 
agreeable  to  craft  in  the  state.  The  messianic 
idea  is  risen,  and  goes  before  us  in  the  sons  of 
men  committed  to  the  social  redemption,  to  lead 
on  to  the  holy  society.  The  Jesus  of  reality, 
whose  beauty  of  life  our  pagan  ethics  yet  dis- 
figure, whose  hope  for  man  our  wealth  and 
theology  would  crucify  afresh,  is  being  glorified 
in  the  rise  of  human  faith  to  his  ideal,  and  in 
the  social  expectancy  of  his  initiative. 

Then  not  back,  but  on  to  Christ,  is  the  divine 
meaning  of  the  social  cry  ;  and  the  universal 
suffering  that  raises  it  waits  for  the  social  faith 


THE    CONFLICT  OF  CHRIST.  2CK) 

in  his  name  to  answer  and  save  ;  no  other  name 
among  men  has  so  great  power  to  summon  the 
world  to  its  social  task.  The  recovery  of  the 
lost  cross,  yesterday  abandoned  by  the  church 
to  gain  the  world  and  lose  its  soul,  yet  to  be 
found  in  the  strife  of  to-day  and  the  woe  of  to- 
morrow, is  the  fundamental  social  need.  Only 
the  reaching  light  of  the  Lord  Christ's  cross 
can  disclose  the  social  heaven  in  human  fact. 
They  who  plant  that  cross  in  the  social  fore- 
front, to  be  seen  and  read  of  men  in  its  real 
meaning,  to  have  its  law  interpreted  in  terms  of 
labor  and  justice,  freedom  and  growth,  will  bring 
the  peace  of  good-will,  through  the  justice  of 
love,  to  human  society. 


LECTURE  VII. 

INDUSTRIAL  FACTS   AND   SOCIAL 
IDEALS. 


It  is  clear,  however,  that  this  unbridling  cannot  last.  The  mod- 
ern soul  is  better  than  its  doctrines,  and  beneath  the  scum  on  the 
surface  the  fount  of  the  ideal  flows  on  as  deep  as  ever.  The  soul 
well  knows  that  this  cannot  be  the  final  expression  of  the  emancipa- 
tion of  thought ;  but  that  there  must  lurk  somewhere  a  dishonoring 
and  deadly  sophism.  The  impulse  which  drives  a  part  of  the  young 
generation  to  mysticism  is  nought  but  the  first  reaction  of  conscience 
seeking  an  outlet  towards  the  pure  air,  —  a  sterile  reaction,  —  for 
mysticism  is  death  for  the  soul,  but  the  forerunner  of  a  fruitful  revolt. 
In  endeavoring  to  retrace  its  steps  and  bend  again  under  the  yoke 
which  it  had  broken,  the  modern  soul  attempts  the  impossible.  It 
knows  that  it  cannot  abjure  science,  and  it  knows,  too,  that  it  can 
only  be  saved  by  an  assertion  of  conscience  to  which  science  cannot 
dictate,  and  which  should  control  science. 

The  truths  that  would  save  us  are  not  far  to  seek.  They  are  cur- 
rent in  the  streets,  but  anaemic  and  bloodless.  In  order  to  become 
again  living  and  triumphant  realities,  they  require  only  to  be  conveyed 
to  us  by  a  voice  speaking  with  authority.  The  one  heard  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago  is  hushed,  because  some  of  its  words  are  repealed, 
words  that  were  spoken  to  help  men  to  die,  and  not  to  help  them  to 
live,  and  impotent  in  a  world  eager  for  justice,  for  life,  for  light. 
And  now,  behold  humanity  unwittingly  ascending  towards  the  higher 
source,  towards  the  misunderstood  masters  of  Christianity, "  whose 
disciples  we  are,  we  all  who  seek  a  God  without  priests,  a  revelation 
without  prophets,  a  covenant  written  in  the  heart."  — James  Darms. 
teter. 


VII. 

INDUSTRIAL   FACTS    AND   SOCIAL 
IDEALS. 

When  a  man  feels  in  himself  the  upheaval  of  a  new  moral  fact  he 
sees  plainly  enough  that  that  fact  cannot  come  into  the  actual  world 
all  at  once  —  not  without  first  a  destruction  of  the  existing  order  of 
society  —  such  a  destruction  as  makes  him  feel  satanic  ;  then  an  in- 
tellectual revolution  ;  and  lastly  only,  a  new  order  embodying  the 
new  impulse.  When  this  new  impulse  has  thoroughly  materialized 
itself,  then  after  a  time  will  come  another  inward  birth,  and  similar 
changes  will  be  passed  through  again.  So  it  might  be  said  that  the 
work  of  each  age  is  not  to  build  on  the  past,  but  to  rise,  out  of  the 
past  and  throw  it  off  ;  only  of  course  in  such  matters  where  all  forms 
of  thought  are  inadequate  it  is  hard  to  say  that  one  way  of  looking 
at  the  subject  is  truer  than  another.  As  before,  we  should  endeavor 
to  look  at  the  thing  from  different  sides.—  Edward  Carpenter. 

For  every  man  who  has  an  ideal,  the  most 
difficult  lesson  is  that  of  learning  that  ideals  are 
formed  for  men,  and  not  men  for  ideals.  The 
most  seemingly  worthless  life  has  rights  that 
eternally  transcend  the  loftiest  ideals  of  right ; 
and  life  is  eternally  more  than  any  of  its  ideals 
and  forms.  The  ideal  life  is  indeed  not  a  pur- 
suit of  ideals,  but  of  life  itself  ;  it  is  the  life  that 
uses  its  ideals  for  the  day,  and  returns  them  to 
213 


214  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

God  at  night,  to  be  consumed,  or  to  be  changed 
and  enlarged.  An  ideal  is  an  outline  for  the 
moment,  for  the  man,  for  the  age,  for  the  millen- 
nium, to  be  taken  clown  as  the  larger  outline 
opens  to  view.  But  the  fatal  mistake  of  ideal- 
ists in  the  past,  and  of  social  reformers  in  the 
present,  is  that  of  each  treating  his  ideal  as  an 
end  in  itself,  just  as  religions  and  institutions 
are  made  ends  in  themselves.  He  who,  without 
a  second  thought,  would  be  burnt  to  ashes  for 
his  ideal,  defeats  its  leadership  through  refusing 
to  attach  it  to  the  conditions  and  movements  he 
means  it  to  lead.  When  one  resolutely  deter- 
mines upon  an  ideal  in  such  way  that  it  detaches 
him  from  human  facts,  and  he  thus  becomes  a 
mere  moral  or  spiritual  absolutist,  he  crushes 
where  he  means  to  heal,  obstructs  instead  of 
leads  ;  he  falls  to  worshipping  his  ideal  instead 
of  God,  and  will  henceforth  have  God's  will 
done  only  in  the  terms  of  a  self-will  and  unfaith 
which  he  mistakes  for  fidelity ;  he  takes  the 
ideal  which  was  sent  to  liberate  and  to  lead,  and 
establishes  it  over  himself  as  an  impersonal  ty- 
rant ;  he  makes  a  new  house  of  bondage  more 
impregnable  than  the  one  from  which  he  has 
escaped  —  more  impregnable,  because  he  binds 
his  soul  with  the  truth  that  was  meant  to  set 
him  free. 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.      21 5 

The  problem  of  the  idealist  is  the  problem 
of  how  to  attach  his  ideal  to  the  conditions  and 
movements  which  seem  to  be  its  antithesis. 
The  world  of  fact  has  no  patience  with  the 
idealist ;  the  idealist  detaches  his  ideal  from 
the  world.  The  practical  man  has  no  faith 
in  the  power  of  the  stars  to  safely  draw  his 
chariot  ;  the  stars  lose  their  friendship  for  the 
practical  man,  with  his  stupidity  and  compro- 
mises. 

Jesus  seems  to  have  solved  this  problem  for 
himself  and  his  friends.  He  was  the  most 
radical  of  idealists;  but  he  was  also  the  most 
rational  and  hopeful  of  men  in  his  attitude  to- 
wards the  wrongs  he  confronted.  His  economic 
of  progress  was  one  of  fulfilment,  not  of  de- 
struction. He  used  his  ideal,  but  did  not  let 
his  ideal  use  him.  It  was  an  ideal  that  united 
him  with  all  the  facts  and  forces  of  his  times, 
and  separated  him  from  nothing.  He  was  al- 
ways seeking  to  disclose  the  principles  of  that 
ideal  in  the  monstrous  things  which  the  world 
mistook  for  realities.  He  pointed  to  the  seeds 
of  regeneracy  that  lay  within  every  degeneracy  ; 
to  the  right  that  was  the  reality  of  every  wrong ; 
to  the  good  that  was  the  substance  of  every 
evil ;  to  the  truth  that  supported  every  false- 
hood.    He  looked  for  the  new  and  the  lasting 


2l6  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

amidst  the  old  and  the  passing.  He  sought  the 
elements  of  the  world's  redemption  in  the  men 
and  conditions  that  needed  redeeming.  He 
constantly  appealed  from  phenomena  to  reality  ; 
from  apparent  and  observable  facts  to  facts 
unseen  and  substantial.  He  clearly  saw  the 
elemental  forces  in  the  things  with  which  he 
had  to  deal,  and  he  kept  his  feet  in  the  human 
soil,  in  order  that  he  might  use  these  forces  and 
things  to  make  future  out  of  the  past  and  the 
present.  True  to  his  ideal  to  the  last,  he  yet 
never  detached  it  from  existing  facts  ;  he  always 
kept  his  hands  in  the  human  clay  which  his  ideal 
was  to  mould  and  make  alive.  It  was  thus  that 
he,  the  most  transcendent  of  all  idealists,  got 
his  ideal  so  deeply  under  human  facts  and  con- 
ditions that  he  has  ever  since  made  it  bear  the 
world  on  its  shoulders. 

With  a  habit  of  mind  more  truly  scientific 
than  that  of  the  modern  scientific  method,  Je- 
sus surveyed  the  possibilities  of  righteousness 
in  every  movement  of  his  time.  From  the 
beginning  of  his  career,  he  was  eager  to  learn 
righteousness  from  any  source.  We  read  of 
his  questioning  and  arguing,  when  yet  a  boy, 
with  the  doctors  of  the  national  religion.  He 
seems  to  have  gone  among  the  Zealots,  the 
revolutionary  party  of   the    nation  ;  and    there 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,  SOCIAL   IDEALS.      21 7 

are  indications  that  he  considered  deeply  and 
well,  to  finally  reject,  the  method  of  revolution 
by  force.  It  is  evident  that  he  had  been  among 
the  Essenes,  the  strict  Puritan  party  of  his  day, 
the  leaders  of  which  party  may  have  brought 
their  ascetic  doctrines  and  practices  from  the 
Buddhist  monasteries  of  the  far  east.  He 
learned  much  from  the  Essenes,  while  he  saw 
how  impossible  to  mere  asceticism  was  the  real 
redemption  of  human  life.  So  to  every  man 
and  movement,  however  inadequate  or  mis- 
taken, Jesus  came  with  the  generous  ardor  and 
adventure  of  the  finest  spiritual  chivalry.  He 
accepted  what  there  was  of  worth  in  each,  even 
when  holding  most  loyally  to  his  ideal ;  even 
when  the  man  or  movement  could  take  but  the 
feeblest  or  blindest  first  step  toward  the  goal, 
and  could  see  no  goal  at  that.  Discoveries  of 
fatal  lack  did  not  discourage  his  faith ;  he 
rather  turned  from  each  failure  to  a  more 
hopeful  quest.  Finally,  he  joined  himself  to 
the  movement  of  John  the  Baptist.  The  Bap- 
tist did  not  understand  Jesus'  ideal,  and  only 
in  the  rudest  sense  did  he  represent  the  cause 
of  spiritual  and  national  liberty.  Yet  John's 
initiative  was  the  best  that  Jesus  could  find; 
and  whatever  was  good,  it  was  his  purpose  to 
learn  from  and  to  help.      He  would  be  in  the 


2l8  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

sweep  of  whatever  righteousness  was  moving 
in  his  day.  While  thus  giving  himself  to  a 
movement  that  promised  better  things  to  his 
people,  rude  and  insufficient  as  the  movement 
was,  the  heavens  of  larger  truth  opened  to 
his  vision,  and  the  full  tide  of  his  spiritual 
consciousness  swept  into  his  soul.  The  ful- 
ness and  glory  of  his  ideal  was  disclosed  while 
he  was  making  his  way  through  the  thick  of 
human  struggle  and  baffled  effort. 

The  ideal  of  Jesus  took  possession  of  his 
apostles  —  unlettered  fishermen;  and  vast  re- 
sistless forces  —  forces  of  mind,  body,  and  soul 
—  which  they  knew  not  existed  in  themselves 
or  in  any  men,  awoke  and  moved  out  of  their 
lives  to  the  moral  and  intellectual  conquest  of 
the  world.  Intellectual  greatnesses  and  physi- 
cal endurances,  of  which  they  had  never  dreamed, 
made  them  the  amazement  of  themselves  and 
the  marvel  of  the  nations.  Their  spiritual  pas- 
sion burned  up  their  selfishness,  and  tore  open 
their  stupidity ;  so  that  out  of  the  ashes  of  their 
dead  selves,  from  their  gross  Galilean  darkness, 
they  emerged  as  men  of  Christ,  to  shine  as 
lights  of  God  across  long  ages.  Out  of  their 
ignorance  and  obscurity  they  went  as  the  teach- 
ers of  the  world  ;  as  the  makers  of  its  progress  ; 
as  the  philosophers  of  its  history.     They  found 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.      2IO, 

their  life  and  its  ideals,  as  Jesus  found  his,  by 
always  attaching  themselves  to  the  best  discov- 
erable movements  towards  righteousness  ;  by 
working  with  facts  and  conditions ;  by  seeking 
to  make  Jesus'  ideal  the  mould  in  which  every 
man  and  movement  should  at  last  be  cast. 

Now  all  this  may  seem  quite  mystical,  but  it 
has  a  most  immediate  and  practical  bearing 
upon  the  relation  of  those  of  us  who  seek  social 
righteousness  to  the  facts  and  conditions  we 
would  set  right.  There  are  many  of  us  who 
have  widely  different  ideals  of  social  method 
and  organization,  but  who  are  all  reaching  for 
about  the  same  goal :  that  is,  we  all  want  broth- 
erhood, equality  of  opportunity,  and  the  justice 
of  love  for  all  men.  But  we  are  not  seeking 
points  of  agreement  and  contact  whereby  we 
may  summon  to  action  the  people,  who  are  not 
only  waiting  to  be  organized,  but  who  are  cry- 
ing out  to  be  led  in  the  first  steps  towards  the 
achieving  of  a  better  civilization.  Each  of  us 
who  have  programmes  and  ideals  of  social  reform 
is  in  danger  of  working  for  our  programmes, 
instead  of  making  our  programmes  work  for  the 
people.  We  are  not  ready,  as  we  ought  to  be, 
to  help  each  other's  movements  toward  right- 
eousness, and  to  join  ourselves  to  anything  and 
everything  that  aims  at  bettering  society.     We 


220  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

are  trying  to  make  the  wagons  of  industry  hitch 
themselves  to  our  stars,  when  we  ought  to  be 
finding  how  to  hitch  our  stars  to  the  wagons. 
If  we  really  have  faith  in  our  ideals  and  pro- 
grammes, we  will  risk  them  in  any  sort  of  con- 
junction, and  lend  their  energy  to  every  kind 
of  effort,  that  will  take  a  single  step  toward  the 
liberty,  fraternity,  and  equality  that  we  seek. 
The  effort  we  join  may  be  very  rude  and  imper- 
fect, or  it  may  be  lame  and  weak ;  it  may  have 
a  very  different  motive  from  ours  behind  it,  and 
a  very  different  perspective  before  it  ;  but  if  a 
great  love  for  the  people  be  our  master,  and  if 
we  really  trust  our  ideals,  we  can  join  in  move- 
ments that  seem  to  us  awkward  and  inadequate, 
with  the  serene  faith  that  only  what  is  best  and 
true  will  issue  from  the  conjunction  at  last. 
Our  ideals  must  stoop  to  conquer ;  they  must 
attach  themselves  to  the  efforts  they  would 
lead.  If  our  own  programme  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  not  yet  clear  in  our  minds,  or  if  the 
moment  has  not  come  for  proclaiming  it,  let  us 
attach  ourselves  to  John  the  Baptist,  to  Karl 
Marx,  to  Henry  George,  to  Edward  Bellamy,  to 
Mr.  Gronlund's  co-operative  commonwealth ;  to 
anything  and  everything  except  the  mere  con- 
servatism, or  the  idle  and  bewildered  waiting, 
which  our  economic  tyrannies  are  using  to  build 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.     221 

their  thrones.  If  we  believe  that  God  is  in  the 
midst  of  the  people,  and  that  human  life  is  his 
real  presence,  we  shall  not  be  afraid  of  the 
broadest  intellectual  and  spiritual  democracy; 
we  shall  not  be  afraid  to  trust  each  other's 
minds  and  motives.  If  we  fear  to  have  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  democracy,  how  can  we 
expect  to  achieve  economic  and  political  democ- 
racy ?  If  we  cannot  have  co-operation  in  mind 
and  spirit,  how  can  we  have  co-operation  in 
production  and  distribution  ?  Or,  if  we  prefer 
the  term,  "equality  in  competition,"  we  must 
remember  that  free  competition,  in  a  real  de- 
mocracy, means  that  every  man's  opinion,  with- 
out regard  to  our  opinion  of  the  man,  whether 
he  be  fool  or  sage,  blackest  sinner  or  whitest 
saint,  has  a  moral  and  social  value,  worthy  of 
positive  and  sympathetic  consideration.  What- 
ever be  our  ideals  of  social  reform,  they  must 
scale  the  whole  octave  of  human  effort,  if  they 
would  bring  forth  the  social  harmony  for  which 
mankind  suffers  and  toils. 

But  let  me  be  specific.  There  are  certain 
beginnings  which  we  all  agree  to  be  necessary, 
before  there  can  be  any  effective  social  change, 
whatever  be  our  programmes  of  reform.  Among 
these  are  the  initiative,  the  referendum,  pro- 
portional representation,  and  kindred  measures, 


222  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

which  look  towards  a  restoration  to  the  people 
of  the  power  which  they  have  ignorantly  and 
wickedly  surrendered  to  their  so-called  repre- 
sentatives. The  Marxian  socialist,  the  Fabian 
socialist,  the  single  taxer,  the  Jeffersonian  in- 
dividualist, the  philosophical  anarchist,  all  agree 
that  representative  government  has  broken 
down ;  that  it  has  become  a  plutocratic  bureau- 
cracy ;  that  if  the  people  would  effect  any  polit- 
ical or  social  change,  they  must  get  into  their 
hands  the  power  by  which  the  change  is  to  be 
made.  All  of  these  are  also  pretty  generally 
agreed  that  the  present  judicial  system  is  an 
usurpation  and  a  tyranny ;  that  it  is  subverting 
the  law-making  power  of  the  people,  and  de- 
stroying the  foundations  of  popular  liberty. 
Furthermore,  the  most  of  these  are  coming  to 
agree  that  the  private  ownership  of  public  utili- 
ties is  practically  the  private  ownership  of 
human  beings  ;  that  private  property  in  pub- 
lic resources  is  destroying  private  property  in 
individual  resources,  making  even  the  owner- 
ship of  their  daily  bread  a  wretched  uncertainty 
to  the  vast  majority  of  human  beings.  Now, 
why  not  pool  our  differences  for  a  while,  and 
form  a  national  reform  trust  upon  the  basis 
of  the  things  we  all  want  ?  Why  not  at  least 
agree  to   clear   the    field    for    our   differences, 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.      223 

before  we  undertake  to  settle  them  ?  I  fear 
that  if  we  do  not  very  soon  come  to  such  agree- 
ment, we  will  find  no  field  left  on  which  to 
dispute ;  the  most  of  it  is  already  in  intrenched 
and  fortified  possession  of  the  common  enemy. 
And  if  we  could  waive  our  differences,  and 
summon  the  sinking  energies  of  the  people, 
long  enough  to  make  the  initial  movements 
towards  a  better  civilization,  perhaps  we  should 
find  at  last  that  we  had  no  differences  of  con- 
sequence to  settle  ;  that  we  were  being  kept 
apart,  while  the  people  suffered,  by  words  and 
definitions  rather  than  by  sympathies  and  ideals. 
There  is  no  measuring  the  power  of  a  common 
passion  for  righteousness  to  consume  differ- 
ences, to  enlighten  willing  minds,  to  fuse  and 
unify  self-sacrificing  energy.  It  is  in  spiritual 
passion  and  action,  and  not  in  speculation  and 
argument,  that  human  beings  find  themselves 
marching  side  by  side  in  the  same  great  cause, 
their  hearts  beating  to  the  same  hope  and  har- 
mony, their  eyes  beholding  the  glory  of  the 
same  liberty. 

The  Marxian  socialist  will  say  to  the  single- 
taxer  that  merely  making  the  land  common 
property  is  not  enough  ;  that  the  resources  and 
instruments  of  production  must  be  owned  in 
common  by  the  people,  or  the  people  in  com- 


224  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

mon  be  enslaved.  Very  well ;  that  does  not 
prevent  the  socialist  from  working  with  the 
single-taxer  for  the  freeing  of  the  land,  in  order 
that  each  may  have  a  chance  to  propose  and 
carry  out  his  programme.  The  single-taxer  will 
say  to  the  socialist  that  the  public  ownership  of 
public  utilities  will  only  raise  the  price  of  rents, 
and  thus  chiefly  benefit  the  landlord,  or  the 
already  well-to-do  and  rich,  if  public  ownership 
be  established  while  private  property  in  land 
remains.  The  single-taxer  is  right ;  for  without 
free  and  common  land  for  the  children  of  God, 
nothing  and  no  one  can  be  free  ;  but  that  does 
not  prevent  the  single-taxer  from  working  with 
the  evolutionary  socialist  for  the  public  owner- 
ship of  the  utilities  which  each  agree  should  be 
publicly  owned.  In  fact,  single-taxers  and  Fa- 
bian socialists  have  already  adopted  programmes 
that  practically  come  to  about  the  same  thing. 
And  there  is  every  reason  why  the  philosophical 
anarchist  of  the  Kropotkin  type,  or  the  Chris- 
tian anarchist  of  the  Tolstoi  sort,  or  even  the 
Jeffersonian  individualist,  should  work  upon  a 
social  programme  which  would  take  power  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  few  and  put  it  into  the 
hands  of  the  many.  The  man  who  believes  only 
in  the  free  and  unrestricted  play  of  individual- 
ity, who  believes  that  the  Golden  Rule  is  the 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.      225 

natural  law  which  men  would  practise  if  they 
were  free,  who  believes  that  governments  and 
institutions  of  force  have  no  natural  or  ethical 
right  to  be,  even  he  ought  to  see  that  the  only- 
way  into  the  freedom  he  seeks  is  through  com- 
pleting as  quickly  as  possible  the  experience 
through  which  mankind  is  now  passing.  For 
we  cannot  escape  by  reversion  ;  we  cannot  go 
back  on  history  ;  we  cannot  prevent  the  blos- 
soming of  the  world. 

I  know  that  what  I  have  been  saying  is  not 
likely  to  please  anybody,  at  first.  But  I  know, 
too,  that  while  we  each  go  our  halting  and 
feeble  ways  of  reform,  the  bulk  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Christendom  is  being  reduced  to  helpless 
economic  serfdom.  While  we  stand  bewildered 
and  disputing,  fetters  of  steel  are  being  forged 
for  every  citizen  of  this  nation  —  fetters  that,  if 
not  broken  soon,  will  bind  our  children's  chil- 
dren, to  be  broken  at  last  by  the  mortal  agony, 
the  bleeding  and  the  dying,  of  their  children. 
While  we  argue  about  what  is  to  be  done,  there 
is  no  question  as  to  what  is  being  done  by  those 
who  are  quickly  enslaving  the  nation  ;  who  are 
gathering  the  whole  people  as  grist  for  the  mo- 
nopolist mill.  While  we  reformers  wait  to  con- 
vince each  other,  and  the  people  wait  as  sheep 
for  the  politicians  to  lead  to  economic  slaughter, 


226  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

the  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  functions 
of  both  National  and  State  governments,  with 
the  Constitution  and  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence thrown  in,  are  being  used  to  destroy 
what  political  and  economic  independence  re- 
mains, so  that  our  power  to  even  peacefully 
revolt  will  soon  be  gone  with  our  liberties. 

We  may  well  consider,  at  this  point,  the 
power  of  the  nearly  three  billions  of  capital 
organized  in  combinations,  in  open  defiance  of 
law.  If  the  great  steel  trust,  which  has  lately 
been  capitalized  at  $200,000,000,  fulfils  the 
possibilities  of  its  charter,  that  one  monopoly 
alone  can  wipe  private  industry  and  ownership 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  has  been  granted 
powers  that  will  enable  it,  inside  of  ten  years, 
to  destroy  the  last  vestige  of  the  middle-class. 
In  less  time  than  that,  it  can  have  the  whole 
wage-earning  population  so  helpless,  its  unions 
and  organizations  so  throttled,  that  the  slave 
before  the  civil  war  was  an  economic  freeman 
in  comparison.  According  to  The  Banking 
Law  Journal  of  September,  1898,  the  articles 
of  incorporation  of  this  trust,  which  was  organ- 
ized "  under  the  guidance  and  direction  of  Mr. 
J.  Pierpont  Morgan,"  whose  banking-house  is 
to  "  finance  the  new  company,"  "  state  that  the 
objects  of  the  company  are  to  engage  in  mining, 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.     227 

manufacturing  ;  the  transportation  of  merchan- 
dise and  passengers  on  land  and  water  ;  building 
vessels,  boats,  railroads,  engines,  cars,  wharves, 
and  docks;  operating  and  maintaining  railroads 
(outside  of  New  Jersey),  steamship  lines,  and 
other  lines  of  transportation ;  the  buying,  im- 
proving, and  selling  of  lands ;  the  manufacture, 
purchase,  acquiring,  holding,  owning,  mortga- 
ging, selling,  transferring,  or  otherwise  disposing 
of,  investing,  trading  or  dealing  in  or  with 
goods,  wares,  merchandise,  and  property  of  every 
description  ;  the  acquiring  and  undertaking  of 
all  or  any  part  of  the  business  assets  and  liabil- 
ities of  any  person,  firm,  association,  or  corpora- 
tion, and  the  making  and  performing  contracts 
of  every  kind;  the  holding,  purchasing,  mort- 
gaging, leasing,  and  conveying  of  real  and  per- 
sonal property  in  any  State  or  Territory  of  the 
United  States,  and  in  any  foreign  country  or 
place,  and  in  carrying  on  any  other  business  in 
connection  therewith.  The  board  of  directors 
is  authorized  to  increase  its  number  without 
consent  of  the  stockholders,  and  to  make,  alter, 
amend,  or  rescind  the  by-laws,  to  fix  the  amount 
of  the  company's  working  capital,  and  to  exe- 
cute mortgages  and  liens  on  the  property  of 
the  corporation  ;  but  there  shall  be  no  sale  of 
ail  the  property  except  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds 


228  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

of  the  directors.  The  directors  may,  by  major- 
ity vote,  appoint  three  or  more  of  their  number 
to  be  an  executive  committee,  with  the  full 
powers  of  the  board,  to  manage  the  company's 
business.  They  shall  also  determine  whether, 
and  at  what  times  and  places,  and  under  what 
conditions,  the  books  of  the  corporation  shall 
be  open  to  the  inspection  of  the  stockholders  ; 
and  no  stockholder  shall  have  power  to  inspect 
the  books  or  accounts  except  as  authorized  by 
statute,  by  determination  of  the  directors  or 
in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  a  resolution 
adopted  at  a  meeting  of  the  stockholders." 
The  article  concludes  with  warning  those  per- 
sons who  see  only  iniquity  in  the  New  Jersey 
laws  which  permit  the  incorporation  of  such 
trusts  that  they  "are  but  gnawing  a  file."  In 
fine,  here  is  a  trust  which  deliberately  proposes, 
by  sheer  economic  might,  to  centralize  the  in- 
dustry of  the  nation  in  a  single  great  economic 
despotism ;  that  deliberately  plans  to  reduce 
labor  to  complete  economic  subjection ;  that 
already  practically  owns  the  machinery  of  gov- 
ernment as  literally  as  you  own  the  coat  on  your 
back.  An  authoritative  English  financial  jour- 
nal, The  Investors'  Review >  reports  an  eminent 
American  citizen  and  politician,  who  is  also 
prominent  in  the  great    steel    organization,  as 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.      229 

saying:  "We  have  the  mines  and  the  mills, 
and  the  railroads  connecting  them,  and  the 
shipping  facilities,  and  many  subsidiary  enter- 
prises ;  and  we  are  going  to  manufacture  our 
steel  with  economies  that  will  make  it  cheaper 
than  before,  and  cheaper  than  it  is  anywhere 
else  in  the  world.  But  we  are  going  to  raise 
the  price.  In  the  past  we  have  had  to  make 
concessions  to  our  workingmen.  As  long  as 
the  mills  were  competitors,  when  one  gave  way 
as  to  hours  or  wages  the  others  had  to  do  the 
same.  But  there  is  an  end  to  all  that  sort  of 
thing  now."  And  this  subjection  of  the  wage- 
earner  comes  at  a  time  when,  according  to  the 
Engineering  and  Mining  Journal  oi  Oct.  8,  1898, 
the  average  annual  earnings  of  miners  in  the 
United  States  range  from  $192  in  Ohio  to  $277 
in  West  Virginia,  while  the  annual  earnings  of 
miners  in  Germany  range  from  $180  to  $282. 
"  In  addition  to  this,"  says  the  Journal,  which 
is  an  organ  and  friend  of  the  existing  order  of 
things,  "  the  German  miner  is  insured  against 
sickness  and  accident,  and  is  provided  a  small 
pension  when  old  age  disables  him.  A  small 
deduction  is  made  from  his  wages  for  the  insu- 
rance fund,  but  that  charge  is  not  included  in 
the  average  wages  given.  Moreover,  the  miner 
in  West  Virginia  and  some  other  States  draws 


230  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

most  of  his  necessaries  from  the  companies' 
stores,  and  it  is  notorious  that  many  officials 
depend  upon  these  stores  for  any  margin  of 
profit  they  may  realize  in  their  business.  So 
far  as  living  expenses  go,  the  advantage  is  with 
the  German.  It  costs  less  to  live  there  than  it 
does  here." 

The  organizers  of  the  steel  trust  are  already 
asking  the  public  precisely  what  I  am  asking 
you :  what  do  you  propose  to  do  about  it  ? 
"  How  long  will  the  American  people  tolerate 
this  sort  of  tyranny  ?  "  asks  the  Chicago  Tri- 
bune, in  a  recent  editorial,  which  declares  "  this 
centralizing  of  capital"  to  be  "the  most  impor- 
tant and  the  most  menacing  of  all  the  industrial 
movements  of  the  present  clay."  "The  sowing 
is  tremendous,"  continues  the  editorial,  "and 
the  reaping  is  likely  to  be  momentous  and  dis- 
astrous." "Before  long,"  it  says,  "there  will 
be  a  savage  fight  between  the  plain  citizens, 
irrespective  of  party,  and  these  gormandizing, 
law-defying  trust  vultures.  The  present  state 
of  things  cannot  last  indefinitely  in  a  free  re- 
public; "  for  "consumers  are  absolutely  at  the 
mercy  of  a  power  that  has  set  itself  up  to  be 
greater  than  the  people  and  stronger  than  the 
government." 

If  we  reformers  can  find  no  basis  of  agree- 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,    SOCIAL   IDEALS.      23 1 

ment  as  to  what  is  to  be  done,  while  the  indus- 
try and  the  moral  well-being  of  the  entire  nation 
are  massacred  by  a  single  trust,  then  Nero  fid- 
dling while  Rome  burned  is  a  paragon  of  inno- 
cence in  comparison  with  ourselves.  If  we  can 
do  nothing  to  save  the  people  unless  we  can 
save  them  within  the  terms  of  our  own  particu- 
lar programmes,  or  until  some  day  of  dreadful 
judgment  forces  us  together,  then  the  fury  of 
that  reckoning  may  tear  all  our  programmes  to 
shreds,  and  the  people  be  saved  by  fire  and  by 
suffering  unspeakable,  because  the  leaders  were 
too  blinded  by  self-will  to  see  the  day  of  their  op- 
portunity. "My  mind,"  says  John  Woolman, 
"  is  led  to  consider  the  purity  of  the  Divine  Be- 
ing, and  the  justice  of  his  judgments  ;  and  herein 
my  soul  is  covered  with  awfulness."  "  Many 
slaves  on  this  continent  are  oppressed,"  he  says, 
"  and  their  cries  have  entered  into  the  ears  of 
the  Most  High.  Such  are  the  purity  and  cer- 
tainty of  his  judgments,  that  he  cannot  be  par- 
tial in  our  favor.  In  infinite  love  and  goodness 
he  hath  opened  our  understandings  from  one  to 
another,  concerning  our  duty  towards  this  peo- 
ple ;  and  it  is  not  a  time  for  delay.  Should  we 
now  be  sensible  of  what  he  requires  of  us,  and 
through  a  respect  to  the  private  interest  of  some 
persons,  or  through  a  regard  to  some  friendships 


232  .        BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

which  do  not  stand  upon  an  immutable  founda- 
tion, neglect  to  do  our  duty  in  firmness  and 
constancy,  still  waiting  for  some  extraordinary 
means  to  bring  about  their  deliverance,  God 
may  by  terrible  things  in  righteousness  answer 
us  in  this  matter." 

But  there  is  an  infinitely  more  important 
reason  for  considering  this  centralization  of 
economic  power  than  the  tyranny  and  wrong  it 
presents  ;  we  need  to  discern  whether  or  not  it 
discloses  a  method  and  basis  for  economic  jus- 
tice and  industrial  liberty.  It  is  the  Christian 
and  historic  method  to  always  look  within  the 
problem  for  its  solution  ;  to  find  the  ways  and 
means  of  redemption  in  the  conditions  and  men 
that  need  redeeming.  We  must  look  for  our 
revelation  of  God  in  human  life,  and  seek  our 
ideals  in  the  facts  and  forces  in  which  we  and 
our  times  are  caught.  Tyranny  builds  for 
freedom  without  knowing  it,  and  the  worst  is 
but  the  inverted  best.  Every  historic  wrong 
has  carried  in  it  the  means  of  its  own  righting, 
and  the  old  is  always  pregnant  with  the  new. 
Within  every  evil  order  or  exhausted  system 
may  be  discerned  the  outlines  of  the  order  or 
system  that  is  good.  Christianity  followed  the 
lines  of  organization  drawn  by  Greek  democ- 
racies, and  took  the  Roman  universality  of  the 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,    SOCIAL   IDEALS.      233 

Caesars  for  its  perspective  of  spiritual  conquest 
and  universal  brotherhood.  By  this  method, 
we  may  see  that  our  combinations  of  capital, 
or  trusts,  are  not  merely  matters  for  fear  ;  we 
may  behold  them  as  revelations  of  the  safety 
and  liberty  that  are  from  God.  Centralization 
and  unification  seem  to  be  the  providential 
decree  which  has  gone  through  all  the  world. 
We  can  no  more  withstand  it  than  we  can 
restrain  the  stars  from  pursuing  their  courses. 
Our  part  is  to  co-operate  with  this  manifest 
revelation  ;  to  see  to  it  that  the  centralization 
of  production  and  distribution,  as  well  as  of  all 
things  else,  is  by  and  for  the  people,  who  are 
the  sole  lawful  owners  of  the  earth's  resources, 
and  who  alone  can  safely  wield  the  power  that 
springs  from  their  possession  and  usage.  In 
spite  of  their  monstrous  purposes,  the  monopo- 
lists are  the  providentially  bad  builders  of  a 
finally  good  civilization,  which  the  people  are 
too  stupid,  indolent,  and  selfish  to  build  for 
themselves.  As  Laurence  Gronlund  has  said, 
"  Providence  is  actually  under  our  very  eyes 
making  human  greed  and  lust  of  power  forge 
weapons  against  themselves,  train  men  in  co- 
operation and  organization,  and,  indeed,  con- 
struct the  whole  new  social  order,  so  that  all 
that  will  be  left  to  do  is  to  knock  down  the 
scaffolding." 


234  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

Yes,  in  their  positive  and  important  aspect, 
our  combinations  of  capital  are  revelations  of 
God  and  his  purposes  ;  and  in  them  we  may- 
discern  the  outline  and  goal  of  future  social 
evolution.  If  we  the  people  have  not  the 
moral  gumption  and  social  foresight  to  organize 
the  industries  of  the  nation  for  our  common 
good,  let  the  Federal  Steel  Company  do  it  for 
us.  We  may  smartly  say  that  we  will  dismiss 
the  trust,  when  it  has  done  for  us  in  a  terrible 
way  what  we  ought  to  have  nobly  done  for  our- 
selves. But  if,  through  our  failure  to  co-oper- 
ate with  each  other  in  the  pursuit  of  social 
good,  we  fail  to  co-operate  with  the  providential 
decree  writ  large  in  our  industrial  conditions 
and  tendencies,  so  that  the  glorious  purposes 
of  God  shall  have  to  be  wrought  out  for  us  by 
the  hands  of  the  enemies  of  those  purposes, 
then  unreckonable  suffering  is  the  price  we  will 
have  to  pay  for  social  obedience  and  sanity  ; 
and  the  trust  builders  will  not  be  dismissed 
until  we  have  paid  the  uttermost  farthing. 

But  there  is  still  time  for  a  better  way  ;  for 
what  the  glorified  woman,  to  whom  this  hall  is 
a  memorial,  calls  "the  frictionless  way."  "I 
would  take,"  she  says,  "  not  by  force,  but  by 
the  slow  progress  of  lawful  acquisition  through 
better  legislation  as  the  outcome  of  a  wiser  bal- 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.      235 

lot  in  the  hands  of  men  and  women,  the  entire 
plan  that  we  call  civilization,  all  that  has  been 
achieved  on  this  continent  in  the  four  hundred 
years  since  Columbus  wended  his  way  hither, 
and  make  it  the  common  property  of  all  the 
people,  .requiring  all  to  work  enough  with  their 
hands  to  give  the  finest  physical  development, 
but  not  enough  to  become  burdensome  in  any 
case,  and  permitting  all  to  share  the  advan- 
tages of  education  and  refinement.  I  believe 
this  to  be  perfectly  practicable."  This  is  the 
order,  she  concludes,  which  will  eliminate  "  the 
motives  for  a  selfish  life,"  and  enact  "  into  our 
every  day  living  the  ethics  of  Christ's  gospel." 

The  co-operation  and  method  by  which  this 
may  be  done  is  not  compromise,  but  democracy 
and  brotherhood  in  service.  It  is  the  divine 
opportunism  by  which  all  evolution  proceeds; 
by  which  God  makes  all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  those  who  love  the  good.  I  do  not 
compromise  my  ideal  by  availing  myself  of 
every  step  and  agency  by  which  that  ideal  can 
be  realized ;  by  co-operating  with  every  man  or 
movement  or  experience  that  I  can  make  to 
carry  my  ideal  the  least  part  of  its  way  ;  by  giv- 
ing joyous  sympathy  and  help  to  every  man 
or  movement  or  ideal  seeking  to  emancipate  or 
renew  human  life. 


236  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

This  divine  opportunism  may  often  lead  us 
into  associations  we  do  not  like,  and  join  us  to 
movements  and  men  that  are  judged  scandal- 
ously disreputable.  It  cannot  be  otherwise,  if 
we  would  look  truth  in  the  face  from  day  to  day, 
and  walk  fearless  and  hand  in  hand  with  God's 
kind  of  progress.  For  truth  is  always  showing 
up  just  where  we  do  not  want  to  see  it,  and  the 
best  things  that  come  to  us  are  never  booked 
in  our  contracts  with  our  ideals.  Christ  is  al- 
ways appearing  in  the  wrong  quarter ;  he  com- 
promises us  by  coming  from  among  the  mongrel 
folk  of  Nazareth,  when  he  ought  to  have  come 
out  of  Jerusalem,  clothed  with  the  authority  of 
the  church,  and  arrayed  in  the  glory  of  a  conquer- 
ing state.  He  comes  as  an  unlettered  laborer 
with  his  hands,  speaking  the  rude  and  familiar 
accents  of  the  common  people,  when  we  ex- 
pected him  from  the  imposing  ignorance  of  the 
schools.  He  comes  eating  and  drinking  with 
publicans  and  sinners,  fraternizing  with  the  mob 
and  the  discontented,  chivalrously  receiving  the 
affection  of  outlawed  women,  when  we  looked 
for  him  among  our  "good  citizens."  He  calls 
us  to  repentance  and  judgment  in  socialist  plat- 
forms, or  in  the  revival  meetings  of  the  single- 
taxers,  or  by  the  dread  notes  of  the  anarchist, 
when  we  listened  for  him  in  the  churches.     He 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,    SOCIAL   IDEALS.      2$J 

comes  in  clouds  of  social  threat  and  storm, 
when  we  supposed  him  to  be  upholding  the 
pillars  of  the  existing  order.  He  proclaims  the 
peace  of  good-will  among  men  in  the  material- 
istic terms  of  the  social  democracy  of  Germany, 
while  the  churches  of  the  empire  atheistically 
celebrate  in  his  name  the  triumphs  of  material- 
istic force.  This  eternally  embarrassing  habit 
which  truth  has  of  appearing  in  disreputable 
clothes  and  company  will  have  to  be  reckoned 
with,  if  we  wish  to  keep  company  with  truth, 
and  follow  its  leadership.  It  is  God's  test  of 
our  own  spiritual  reality;  for  it  judges  whether 
the  love  of  self  or  the  love  of  our  brothers  be 
the  motivity  in  which  we  live.  When  we  are 
ashamed  of  any  fellowship  into  which  truth 
leads  us,  we  are  false  to  both  man  and  the  truth. 
"The  most  unblemished  virtue,"  says  Edward 
Carpenter,  "  erected  into  a  barrier  between 
one's  self  and  a  suffering  brother  or  sister  — 
the  whitest  marble  image,  howsoever  lovely,  set 
up  in  the  Holy  Place  of  the  Temple  of  Man, 
where  the  spirit  alone  should  dwell  —  becomes 
blasphemy  and  a  pollution."  It  is  Browning 
who  says  :  — 

"Knowing  ourselves,  our  world,  our  task  so  great, 
Our  time  so  brief,  'tis  clear  if  we  refuse 
The  means  so  limited,  the  tools  so  rude 


238  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

To  execute  our  purpose,  life  will  fleet, 

And  we  shall  fade,  and  leave  our  task  undone. 

We  will  be  wise  in  time :   what  though  our  work 

Be  fashioned  in  despite  of  their  ill-service, 

Be  crippled  every  way?    'Twere  little  praise 

Did  full  resources  wait  on  our  good-will 

At  every  turn.     Let  all  be  as  it  is." 

Again,  this  divine  opportunism  will  not  let 
us  wait  until  we  can  see  whither  the  move- 
ments we  join  may  lead  us.  Revelations  of 
larger  truth  wait  upon  our  obedience  to  the 
truth  we  know,  in  whatever  form  or  disfigure- 
ment it  comes  to  us.  Better  modes  and  ideals 
of  righteousness  are  disclosed  when  we  get  into 
the  thick  of  the  crude  and  imperfect  move- 
ments for  righteousness  already  on  their  way. 
The  heavens  opened  to  Jesus,  and  showed  him 
what  to  do,  when  he  joined  the  multitude  gath- 
ered about  the  vehement  skin-clad  prophet  by 
the  Jordan.  "  One  never  mounts  so  high," 
Cromwell  used  to  say,  "  as  when  one  knows  not 
whither  one  is  going."  All  progress  is  led  by 
the  moral  adventure  of  the  faith  that  sets  out 
not  knowing  whither  it  goes.  Nothing  is  more 
misleading  and  dangerous  than  the  demand  that 
we  keep  silent  about  social  wrong,  and  hush 
our  appeals  for  social  right,  until  we  can  tell 
every  man  what  to  do,  and  state  just  how  the 
better  social  country  we  seek  is  to  be  reached. 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.     239 

We  can  pronounce  the  doom  of  the  old  order 
and  herald  the  new,  as  we  are  divinely  commis- 
sioned to  do,  long  before  we  understand  what 
the  new  order  is  to  be,  or  by  what  steps  it  is  to 
come.  It  was  this  that  John  the  Baptist  did, 
and  that  all  the  prophets  who  have  spoken 
Christ's  larger  comings  since  have  done. 

Let  us  not  be  betrayed  by  the  demand  of  the 
scribes  that  we  wait  for  their  "  clear  thinking," 
and  that  we  act  with  their  "moderation."  We 
must  keep  a  divine  poise,  of  course,  and  be 
serene  withal,  but  with  a  serenity  shot  through 
with  the  fires  of  an  exalted  enthusiasm  for  the 
justice  of  love,  and  the  liberty  thereof.  "A 
deep-seated  immorality  does  in  fact  lie  at  the 
root  of  the  theory  and  system  of  the  moderates," 
says  Mazzini ;  for  they  constantly  sacrifice  "  the 
eternally  true  "  "  to  the  wretched  reality  of  the 
passing  day."  It  is  not  primarily  the  sort  of 
moderation  and  clear  thinking  for  which  the 
scientific  and  prudent  call,  but  high  and  holy 
passion  that  teaches  and  changes  the  world. 
The  light  in  which  progress  finds  its  ascending 
way  always  shines  from  the  white  heat  of  spirit- 
ual passion,  without  which,  says  Hegel,  "we 
may  affirm  absolutely  that  nothing  great  in  the 
world  has  been  accomplished."  The  economic 
despotism  enthroning  itself  over  the  people  will 


24O  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

not  be  overcome  by  the  so-called  clear  thinking 
of  the  schools,  but  by  the  rich  social  feeling,  the 
exultant  faith,  of  the  friends  of  Jesus  who  love 
not  their  own  life  unto  death. 

Nor  can  the  Christian  opportunist  wait  until 
he  is  satisfied  with  his  own  spiritual  state,  before 
he  joins  himself  to  movements  for  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  people.  It  is  true  that  the  value  of 
the  sacrifice  we  make  in  service  depends  upon 
the  purity  of  our  own  lives  and  motives.  They 
who  wage  the  war  of  love  against  social  wrong 
should  be  men  of  clean  hands  and  pure  hearts  ; 
men  whose  souls  are  not  lifted  up  unto  vanity, 
and  who  are  not  betrayed  by  self-deceit.  They 
who  ride  forth  against  the  economic  infidel 
should  be  knights  of  the  Holy  Grail  indeed  ; 
knights  who  have  themselves  drunk  deeply  of 
Christ's  cup,  and  who  bear  that  cup  to  the 
thirsting  peoples;  knights  with  souls  made 
white  by  selfless  love,  every  blemish  washed 
away  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  ;  knights  with 
shields  of  stainless  spiritual  honor,  with  the 
peace  of  good-will  toward  all  men  in  their 
hearts,  with  blessings  for  those  who  curse  them, 
and  with  gifts  of  life  for  those  who  would  visit 
them  with  death.  But  it  is  only  through  suf- 
fering in  the  service  of  our  brethren,  after  all, 
through  the  blood  and  dust  of  the  human  strug- 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.     24I 

gle,  through  descending  into  the  communal 
pain  and  shame,  that  the  individual  soul  finds 
the  purification  and  disentanglement  for  which 
it  yearns.  "  If  we  waited  to  do  any  good  act," 
says  Dr.  John  Bascom,  "  until  our  motives  and 
feelings  were  all  irreproachable,  we  should 
hardly  make  a  beginning."  Broken  and  shame- 
ful as  our  lives  are  in  our  own  eyes,  we  may  yet 
count  that  the  Father  loveth  us  as  we  lay  down 
our  lives  for  the  sheep. 

And  now  let  me  speak  for  myself.  Since 
this  lecture  course  began,  many  of  you  have 
been  trying  to  classify  me,  either  among  those 
who  are  of  Karl  Marx,  or  of  Henry  George,  or 
of  Leo  Tolstoi,  or  of  some  other  social  or  reli- 
gious initiator ;  and  I  have  steadily  refused  to 
be  classified.  Perhaps  some  of  you  may  have 
seen  why.  I  object  to  being  called  a  socialist, 
not  because  socialism  is  too  radical,  but  because 
it  is  too  wholly  conservative ;  I  can  see  in  so- 
cialism at  best  but  a  transition  method  and 
period,  a  new  wilderness  journey  and  discipline, 
on  the  way  to  liberty.  I  object  to  your  looking 
for  me  in  the  single-tax  camp,  not  because  that 
camp  is  too  far  in  the  social  advance,  but  be- 
cause it  occupies  no  more  than  the  place  of  a 
surveying  or  engineering  corps  ;  when  the  land 
is  once  free,  and  the  depraved  system  of  force, 


242  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

fraud,  and  perjury  which  we  call  taxation  is  re- 
moved, with  the  parasitical  governmental  func- 
tions which  the  system  entails,  we  have  then 
merely  cleared  the  ground  for  the  social  prob- 
lem ;  the  question  of  human  relations  and 
destiny  remains  to  be  answered,  and  to  this 
Mr.  George  would  agree.  I  object  to  being 
named  with  those  who  confess  their  faith  in 
the  Christian  anarchism  of  the  lofty  Russian 
prophet,  not  because  his  programme  is  extreme 
in  the  direction  of  the  future,  but  because  it 
seems  to  me  very  reactionary.  Rudely  and  in- 
adequately as  I  interpret  him,  I  prefer  to  stand 
before  you  simply  as  an  interpreter  of  Jesus, 
as  an  advocate  of  his  ideal  of  human  relations. 
The  world  is  not  yet  ready  for  an  economy  of 
society  that  shall  incarnate  the  principles  of 
his  teachings.  Men  are  not  yet  sufficiently 
emancipated  from  fear,  from  faith  in  evil  and 
material  force,  to  trust  the  law  and  liberty  of 
love.  But  we  will  come  to  it  at  last,  this  justice 
of  love,  perhaps  after  we  have  tried  the  failure 
of  everything  else  to  bring  forth  the  social 
rest  of  a  strifeless  progress.  And  when  Jesus' 
programme  of  life  and  relations  is  once  adopted, 
you  will  find  that,  in  comparison  with  him, 
Thomas  More,  John  James  Rousseau,  Karl 
Marx,  Henry  George,  Edward  Bellamy,  and  all 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.      243 

the  rest,  are  but  rude  and  conservative  pioneers 
on  the  social  frontier.  Judged  by  the  elemen- 
tal principles  of  being  which  Jesus  brought  to 
light,  the  most  of  what  you  call  civilization  i? 
but  an  immense  negation,  a  wasteful  though 
necessary  tragedy  of  experience,  to  pass  away 
when  the  soul  of  man  awakes  to  the  freedom 
and  sanity  of  love.  Judged  by  these  principles, 
your  governments  and  institutions  of  force  are 
but  a  scourge  for  the  moment,  coming  out  of 
the  sin  of  dividing  the  gifts  of  nature  into  mine 
and  thine,  and  having  no  ethical  or  final  right  to 
be  ;  they  are  but  travesties,  but  hideous  and  law- 
less outlines,  of  the  inward  government  or  spirit- 
ual order  slowly  emerging  from  them.  When 
the  law  of  love  has  subdued  all  men  and  things 
unto  itself,  there  will  be  nothing  of  what  you 
call  economics,  for  there  will  be  neither  mine 
nor  thine,  nor  any  more  question  of  how  much 
one  shall  have  above  another  than  there  is 
question  of  what  price  to  put  upon  the  sunlight, 
or  of  how  to  divide  the  air  we  breathe  between 
us  ;  there  will  be  neither  wages  nor  profit,  nor 
will  anything  be  bought  or  sold,  but  every  man 
will  freely  have  according  to  his  needs  and 
power  to  use,  and  will  rejoice  to  make  his  life 
a  function  of  the  common  life  and  good,  while 
the  reward  of  the  man  who  serves  best  will  be 


244  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

the  capacity  to  serve  still  better.  I  believe 
that  this  ideal  of  life,  which  Jesus  has  lifted 
into  eternal  view,  which  is  the  ideal  of  all  the 
dreamers  or  creators  of  the  ages,  is  not  only 
practicable  and  predestined  to  be  realized  ;  I 
believe  that  any  other  ideal  is  impracticable, 
and  is  a  collision  with  human  destiny  and  with 
God.  This  ideal  is  not  only  no  mere  dream,  but 
the  lack  of  it  makes  the  whole  of  human  history 
and  experience  a  monstrous  dream  of  the  night. 
Following  this  ideal  as  our  social  vision,  we 
shall  find  ourselves  at  last  in  the  universal  com- 
munism and  liberty  which  are  the  outcome  of 
obedience  to  the  law  of  love.  With  this  con- 
fession of  faith  therefore,  with  Christ's  kingdom 
of  heaven  as  the  only  social  goal  I  can  see,  I 
am  yet  ready  to  follow  any  man,  or  to  work 
with  any  programme,  or  to  march  in  any  camp, 
that  will  take  but  the  blindest  single  step  to- 
wards making  way  for  the  organizing  and  evolv- 
ing power  of  the  peace  of  good-will  among 
men. 

And  if  you  citizens  here  gathered  this  noon- 
tide are  really  in  earnest  about  doing  something 
for  social  righteousness,  if  it  is  clear  to  you  that 
liberty  and  justice  are  being  overthrown  by  eco- 
nomic wrong,  if  some  of  you  wish  to  glorify 
Christ  in  human  facts  and  conditions,  you  can 


INDUSTRIAL   FACTS,   SOCIAL   IDEALS.    245 

begin  by  uniting  to  wrest  this  city  from  the 
hands  of  its  masters,  and  by  giving  it  back  to 
the  people  to  whom  it  belongs.  You  can  take 
this  wilderness  of  ruin  and  greed,  this  habita- 
tion of  every  conceivable  industrial  and  political 
monstrosity,  and  make  the  people  the  lords  of 
its  despoiled  lands  and  highways,  so  that  the 
wilderness  shall  blossom  into  a  municipal  and 
spiritual  commonwealth,  and  the  streets  rejoice 
in  the  traffic  and  song  of  the  plenty  of  justice. 
There  is  enough  of  God  and  manhood  left  in 
you,  enough  of  common  spiritual  reserve,  to 
co-operate  to  this  end  if  you  will.  And  when 
you  have  taken  this  initiative,  you  will  find  a 
larger  and  still  more  uniting  programme  rising 
out  of  your  co-operation  and  experience,  to  lead 
you  as  a  flaming  ideal  by  day,  and  as  a  vision 
of  God  by  night. 


LECTURE   VIII. 
THE   VICTORY   OF  FAILURE. 

Originally  given,  in  substance,  as  an  address  before  the  religious 

societies  of  Harvard  University,  Nov.   19,  1S95,  and 

afterward  published  in  "  The  Christian 

World  Pulpit"  London. 


When  you  see  a  man  dragged  to  prison  or  to  death,  do  not 
hasten  to  say  he  is  a  bad  man,  who  has  committed  a  crime  against 
his  brother. 

For  perhaps  he  is  a  good  man  who  has  tried  to  serve  his  brothers, 
and  who  is  punished  by  their  oppressors. 

When  you  see  a  people  loaded  with  irons  and  given  over  to  the 
executioner,  do  not  hasten  to  say  that  is  a  turbulent  people  seeking 
to  trouble  the  peace  of  the  earth. 

For  perchance  it  is  a  martyr  people  dying  for  the  human  race. 

Eighteen  centuries  ago,  in  an  eastern  town,  the  pontiffs  and  the 
kings  of  that  day  nailed  upon  a  cross,  after  having  beaten  him,  a 
rebel,  a  blasphemer,  as  they  called  him. 

On  the  day  of  his  death  hell  trembled,  but  there  was  joy  in 
heaven. 

For  the  blood  of  the  just  had  redeemed  the  world."  —  Lamennais. 


VIII. 

THE   VICTORY   OF   FAILURE. 

I  have  glorified  thee  on  the  earth,  having  accomplished  the  work 
thou  gavest  me  to  do.  —  John  xvii.  4. 

This  was  said  of  himself  by  one  about  to  be 
nailed  upon  a  criminal's  cross.  His  life  would 
soon  be  going  out  in  what  appeared  to  be 
wretched  failure,  with  endless  disgrace.  In  a 
few  swift  hours,  Jesus  was  dying  as  an  out- 
law. This  was  the  strange  climax  of  the  most 
daring  moral  adventure,  with  the  purest  and 
largest  purpose,  ever  undertaken  by  human 
faith. 

Jesus  was  brought  to  his  death  by  those  ac- 
counted the  best  and  wisest  of  their  day ;  by 
the  religious  teachers,  and  the  prudent  men  of 
the  state.  To  the  "judicious"  and  "conserva- 
tively progressive,"  to  men  of  "reasonable 
minds "  and  "  wise  methods,"  his  denuncia- 
tions of  the  order  of  things  then  existing  were 
exaggerated  and  outrageous  beyond  endurance. 
His  manner  of  life  was  not  respectable;  in  fact, 
249 


250  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

to  the  religious  and  social  proprieties,  his  con- 
duct was  scandalous.  The  most  disreputable 
elements  of  society,  the  worthless  and  always 
discontented,  the  fanatical  and  revolutionary, 
vagabonds  and  publicans,  gathered  about  him 
as  their  leader.  He  came  to  be  regarded  as 
the  enemy  of  religion  and  government,  of  faith 
and  morals.  His  words  were  taken  as  inviting 
the  rabble  or  the  mob  to  the  overthrow  of  all 
that  was  sacred.  He  respected  not  conserva- 
tive reasonings  nor  official  positions  ;  neither 
had  he  regard  for  organized  interests  or  threats. 
It  seemed  that  nothing  was  safe  so  long  as 
Jesus  was  left  alive  ;  his  presence  was  an  in- 
creasing danger  to  both  temple  and  nation  ; 
from  the  standpoint  of  both  patriotism  and  rec- 
ognized religion,  this  man  had  to  be  made  to 
die.  While  the  Romans  consented  to  his  death 
that  they  might  be  rid  of  an  over-religious 
troubler  and  fanatic,  the  leading  Jews  de- 
manded his  crucifixion  for  blasphemy  and  trea- 
son. To  the  political  and  religious  authorities 
his  words  had  outraged,  this  death  of  shame 
seemed  to  be  the  fit  ending  of  Jesus'  life.  They 
nervously  thought  themselves  well  done  with 
the  man,  with  their  interests  conserved  and 
saved. 

If  we  should  measure  the  life  of  Jesus  by 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  25  I 

the  notions  of  failure  and  success  that  still 
prevail,  in  both  church  and  society,  it  would 
prove  to  have  been  a  failure  from  beginning  to 
end,  mistaken  to  the  point  of  moral  insanity. 
He  divided  households  ;  he  drew  people  away 
from  their  authorized  teachers  ;  he  ruthlessly 
beat  clown  the  accepted  religion  of  the  day 
as  an  intolerable  hypocrisy.  He  built  no 
temples  and  made  no  creeds.  He  taught  no 
system  of  theology  and  organized  no  schemes 
of  work.  He  was  betrayed  by  one  disciple, 
denied  by  another ;  in  the  crisis  of  his  seizure, 
he  was  forsaken  by  them  all.  His  beloved  na- 
tion, for  which  he  conceived  a  universal  mis- 
sion, met  his  ardent  patriotism  with  deadly 
rejection.  His  life  was  spent  among  the  poor 
and  wretched,  the  outcast  and  despised,  the 
diseased  and  vicious  ;  and  he  expressed  larger 
hopes  for  the  vile  and  ignorant  than  for  strict 
observers  of  religious  ordinances.  He  had  to 
go  among  sinners  to  get  a  following  ;  the  reli- 
gious would  have  none  of  him.  He  had  small 
entrance  to  what  we  call  the  "  better  classes  " 
of  society.  He  was,  says  Dr.  Young,  in  "The 
Christ  of  History,"  "without  a  single  complete 
example  of  success  while  he  lived." 

When  he  came  from   the  tomb,   to   collect, 
commission,  and  inspire  his  disciples,  they  were 


252  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

few  in  number.  He  plainly  told  them  that 
their  mission  would  render  them  worthless,  re- 
ligious and  social  outlaws  in  authoritative  opin- 
ion. The  will  of  their  Lord  was  to  bring  the 
disciples  into  unending  conflict  with  the  will 
of  the  world,  causing  them  to  be  hated  of  all 
men  and  persecuted  by  all  institutions. 

Withal,  Jesus  was  the  most  wholly  and  in- 
tensely human  of  men  ;  no  other  man  was  ever 
so  finely  responsive  to  every  influence.  He  felt 
that  horror  of  publicity  which  every  nobly  sen- 
sitive spirit  feels  ;  only  his  exalted  interest  in 
his  glorious  undertaking,  so  intense  as  to  make 
him  forgetful  of  himself,  enabled  him  to  endure 
the  public  gaze  and  discussion,  in  which  his 
offered  life  was  a  spectacle  to  the  curious,  an 
opportunity  to  the  religious  debaters,  an  affront 
to  the  official  classes  in  church  and  state.  As 
none  of  us  can,  he  suffered  the  sorrow  of  soul, 
the  helpless  ache  of  heart,  which  comes  with  the 
absence  of  affectionate  and  intelligent  fellow- 
ship with  one's  deepest  life.  One  shrinks  from 
even  a  momentary  look  into  the  holy  pain  of  the 
enforced  loneliness  that  was  his — a  loneliness 
most  keen  when  thronged  by  the  multitudes. 
We  cannot  read  the  Gospels  sympathetically 
without  seeing  how  often  and  patiently,  how 
eagerly  and  expectantly,  he  tried  to  make  him- 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  253 

self  understood  ;  and  did  ever  man  so  completely 
fail  ?  He  was  always  seeking  and  waiting  for 
the  moment  when  he  could  take  his  near  disci- 
ples into  his  full  confidence,  which  he  was  un- 
able to  do,  even  after  the  resurrection.  His 
soul  felt  about  for  friends  who  could  understand, 
and  perhaps  help  him  to  understand,  his  visions 
of  his  own  life,  and  of  the  world  life,  which  he 
must  often  have  been  tempted  to  doubt.  Some 
of  his  appeals  to  his  disciples  reveal  his  great 
and  increasing  hunger  for  sympathy  with  his 
strangely  commissioned  life  ;  for  a  comprehen- 
sion of  his  purpose  and  work,  as,  under  the 
deepening  and  glorious  shadow  of  the  cross,  he 
moved  towards  his  destiny,  matchless  alike  in 
suffering  and  in  service. 

Yet  the  life  of  Jesus  was  the  most  joyous 
ever  lived  among  men.  Unto  the  cross  and 
even  upon  it,  through  all  his  measureless  sor- 
rows, he  was  the  glad  child  of  the  universe. 
Compared  to  others,  his  life  was  a  song  of  joy. 
His  was  the  one  free  spirit,  the  gladdest  heart, 
that  has  ever  rejoiced  our  world  which  sin  has 
troubled  awhile.  No  one  else  ever  so  delighted 
in  the  spirit  of  nature,  so  rejoiced  in  the  nature 
of  spirit,  so  enjoyed  the  fulness  of  life,  to  which 
he  opened  his  soul  as  the  flower  opens  to  the 
sun.     He  sensed  the  sweetness  of  all  life's  ele- 


254  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

merits,  heard  the  music  of  its  forces,  and  saw 
the  beauty  and  concord  of  its  movements.  He 
had  no  concern  for  his  reputation,  no  anxiety 
for  his  individual  future,  but  trusted  himself  to 
the  Father's  keeping  as  unquestioningly  as  the 
babe  rests  in  its  mother's  arms.  His  Father's 
will  was  the  peace  of  his  soul  and  the  power  of 
his  work,  so  that  he  went  about  doing  good  with 
the  expectant  eagerness  of  a  child  at  play.  His 
deeds  were  done  as  the  sun  shines,  and  his 
words  spoken  as  the  rain  falls.  He  was  free 
from  all  care  of  self,  that  he  might  give  his  life 
to  be  meat  and  drink  to  the  impoverished  lives 
of  his  brothers.  In  his  character  were  united 
the  passion  of  a  supreme  sympathy  for  man 
with  the  peace  of  a  faultless  faith  in  God.  Be- 
fore him  was  set  the  joy  of  perfect  obedience 
toward  God  and  perfect  sacrifice  in  the  service 
of  man  —  the  joy  that  swallows  alike  all  joys 
and  sorrows. 

The  life  of  Jesus  is  thus  a  perfect  synthesis 
of  human  experience.  He  became  in  all  things 
like  unto  his  brethren  ;  not  some  things.  He 
was  the  incarnation  of,  as  well  as  in,  the  com- 
mon life.  He  accepted  all  the  limitations  of  our 
humanity,  and  linked  himself  with  the  widest  hu- 
man relationships.  He  was  tried  by  our  temp- 
tations, and  learned  obedience  by  our  sufferings. 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  255 

He  submitted  to  every  kind  of  injustice,  and 
died  the  most  desolate  of  deaths.  He  had  to 
conquer  doubts  that  pressed  in  upon  him  from 
without,  and  walk  by  faith,  as  we  must  walk. 
In  solitary  prayer,  he  had  to  dedicate  himself 
over  and  over  again,  sustaining  himself  only 
through  continuous  consecrations,  in  order  to 
bring  himself  into  unshrinking  obedience  to  the 
Father's  will.  Three  times  he  prayed,  in  the 
garden,  for  the  mysterious  cup  of  the  world's 
woe  to  pass  from  him,  before  he  arose  serene 
and  strong  to  meet  his  betrayer  and  pass  on  to 
his  crucifixion.  Day  by  day  he  had  to  grow 
to  the  cross  ;  grow  in  the  knowledge  of  his 
Father's  will,  as  all  must  grow.  The  Gospels 
make  it  clear  that  he  saw  his  way  to  the  cross 
step  by  step.  We  can  see  that  his  conception 
of  his  mission  enlarged,  and  his  wisdom  deep- 
ened, with  each  new  experience.  There  came 
no  time  when  faith  was  not  the  spring  of  his 
action.  There  were  things  he  did  not  know. 
He  was  amazed  at  the  hardness  of  human 
hearts,  and  found  it  hard  to  understand  the 
unbelief  of  his  nation.  He  grieved  over  the 
conduct  of  his  disciples,  and  marvelled  at  the 
slowness  of  their  spiritual  growth.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  he  had,  in  the  early  part  of  his  min- 
istry,   expectations    of   the    conversion    of   the 


256  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

Jews — expectations  which  were  not  realized, 
to  his  inexpressible  sorrow  and  disappointment. 
Though  his  faith  in  the  triumph  of  righteous- 
ness endured  to  the  end,  while  his  belief  in  the 
divine  sonship  of  man  was  always  deepening, 
and  his  vision  of  truth,  with  his  power  to  love, 
continually  increasing,  the  sin  and  shame  of 
the  world  yet  broke  his  heart  before  his  work 
was  done. 

It  is  the  human  reality  of  Jesus'  experiences 
that  is  slowly,  yet  more  swiftly  than  we  see, 
winning  for  him  the  world's  heart  and  confi- 
dence. The  world  is  coming  to  believe  in 
Jesus  as  the  Christ  of  God,  because  it  believes 
in  him  as  a  man.  His  love  and  faith  toward 
man  are  the  witnesses  that  God  was  in  him. 
Because  he  came  to  his  mission  with  the 
familiar  garb  and  language  of  the  people,  a 
peasant  born  and  bred,  a  carpenter  and  a  car- 
penter's son,  brave  and  joyous  under  the  heavi- 
est burdens,  a  partaker  of  the  common  lot  and  a 
sharer  of  the  common  life,  through  and  through 
a  man,  we  therefore  believe  in  him  as  the  Son 
of  God. 

Had  Jesus'  experiences  been  different,  es- 
caping any  of  the  trials  and  moral  perplexities 
to  which  we  are  subject,  he  could  not  have  been 
the  Saviour  of  man  ;  his  life  would  not  have 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  257 

been  a  fulfilment  of  our  humanity.  If  his  di- 
vinity had  been  essentially  different  from  the 
divine  nature  and  development  of  other  men, 
his  life  would  not  have  been  the  light  of  human 
life. 

Jesus'  nature  thus  being  whole,  and  his  life 
perfectly  poised  in  love,  it  was  the  necessity  of 
his  being  that  he  should  either  declare  open 
and  endless  war  against  organized  wrong,  or 
else  exhaust  his  possibilities  in  a  service  that 
would  prove  a  universal  spiritual  revelation  and 
attraction.  Both  his  faith  and  his  reason  would 
have  been  left  without  foundation,  had  he  long 
sought  any  middle  course  between  directest  an- 
tagonism and  fullest  sacrifice.  It  was  his  only 
possible  self-expression  that  he  should  extermi- 
nate all  the  forms  and  structures  of  evil,  sweep- 
ing with  destruction  the  religious  institutions 
and  their  political  hypocrisies  and  tyrannies,  or 
else  make  the  completest  sacrifice  by  which  the 
law  of  love  might  be  so  redemptively  drama- 
tized in  human  life  as  to  at  last  draw  all  men 
unto  that  law. 

There  are  indications  that  Jesus  met,  in  temp- 
tations beyond  the  power  of  our  sympathy  to 
interpret,  the  question  of  revolution.  Civiliza- 
tion was  a  Roman  dominion,  making  one  vast, 
splendid,  slave-pen   of  the   earth,  with  suicide 


258  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

the  only  escape  for  fettered,  crushed,  and  de- 
spairing lives.  Roman  virtues  had  been  terri- 
ble. But  when  these  virtues  were  dissolving  in 
still  more  terrible  vices,  the  earth  became  the 
arena  of  unmitigated  suffering,  seeming  like 
the  creation  of  devils.  Could  anything  prevail 
against  this  exhausted  system,  save  the  attack 
of  forces  of  its  own  kind  —  forces  it  could  un- 
derstand ?  Then  there  was  the  Jewish  church, 
in  which  Jesus  was  born,  which  he  never  left, 
in  which  he  was  crucified.  This  church  had 
become,  perhaps  not  relatively  more  morally  cor- 
rupt than  ours,  but  a  mere  professional  and  offi- 
cial religion.  Its  teachers  strained  at  gnats  of 
traditional  differences,  and  swallowed  camels  of 
social  iniquity,  laden  with  all  manner  of  crimes 
against  the  nation.  The  church  made  merchan- 
dise of  the  truth,  dealing  out  past  inspirations 
as  religious  wares,  while  it  was  always  rejecting 
the  God  of  the  living.  It  had  thus  come  to 
stand  for  religiousness  rather  than  righteous- 
ness, and  had  become  an  organized  misrepre- 
sentation of  God,  making  God  seem  a  taskmaster 
and  tyrant  like  unto  the  tyrants  over  the  peo- 
ple. Could  anything  prevail  against  this  apos- 
tate church,  which  had  become  the  friend  of 
oppressors  and  the  mere  patron  of  the  op- 
pressed, save  fire  and  sword  ?     How  could  God 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  259 

get  at  the  world  through  such  misery  in  society 
and  tyranny  in  state,  through  such  moral  athe- 
ism in  organized  religion,  save  in  the  revolution 
of  terrific  and  destructive  forces  ?  Could  not  a 
strong  and  intense  character,  with  wide  com- 
prehension and  sympathy,  in  almost  any  corner 
of  the  earth,  gather  independent  spirits  about 
him,  sufficient  in  numbers  and  in  politico-reli- 
gious zeal,  to  overthrow  both  the  religious  des- 
potism of  the  Jewish  church  and  the  political 
despotism  of  the  Roman  state,  and  thus  clear 
the  way  for  God  to  manifest  himself  to  the  peo- 
ple as  their  deliverer,  and  make  them  his  people  ? 
The  people,  too,  would  accept  with  universal 
acclamation  and  joy  the  advent  and  progress 
of  such  a  deliverance.  And  history  has  never 
dreamed  of  such  a  revolutionist  as  Jesus  would 
have  been,  had  he  taken  the  sword. 

But  Jesus  saw  in  Hebrew  history  and  in  na- 
ture, working  out  the  evolution  of  human  life 
in  a  holy  society,  an  eternal  force  which  man 
had  not  yet  recognized.  Perhaps  after  years 
of  prayer  and  noble  waiting,  his  brooding 
thought  perceived  love  to  be  the  real  construc- 
tive force  operating  in  the  world  of  man,  and 
throughout  the  universe  of  God.  In  spite  of 
the  failures  and  expediencies  of  unfaith,  and  by 
the  use  of  them,  the  love  that  was  in  God  was 


260  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

evolving  in  man  the  heavenly  moral  kingdom. 
Jesus  saw  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  which 
he  felt  called  to  reveal  and  realize  on  the  earth, 
could  be  nothing  else  than  the  organization  of 
human  life  in  the  freedom  of  perfect  love.  The 
establishment  of  a  new  civilization,  upon  what 
would  be  merely  a  new  religion,  through  the 
power  of  an  appeal  to  forces  the  world  could 
then  understand,  in  the  place  of  the  order  then 
existing  and  cursing  the  world,  would  have  been 
the  failure  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  a  failure  of 
the  freedom  for  which  man  was  created.  Even 
if  he  could  have  scourged  hypocrisy  and  tyranny 
to  a  judgment  so  terrible  that  they  could  never 
again  rise  in  the  old  organized  religious  and 
political  forms,  he  saw  that  some  time  the  begin- 
ning had  to  be  made,  never  to  be  taken  back, 
by  which  human  life  would  be  consciously  com- 
mitted to  love,  with  its  redeeming  and  perfect- 
ing law  of  sacrifice. 

But,  though  God  would  give  salvation  through 
the  spirit  and  power  of  love,  the  world  would 
have  salvation  through  the  power  of  might.  It 
was  thus  that  by  no  other  than  a  life  of  entire 
mortal  failure,  could  Jesus  accomplish  his  work 
in  perfect  oneness  with  the  will  of  God,  and 
glorify  God  as  our  Father.  The  will  of  God 
and  the  will  of  the  world  were  squarely  antag- 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  26 1 

onistic  ;  in  Jesus  they  met  in  mortal  combat. 
The  attempt  to  make  his  life  a  fulfilment  of 
both  the  will  of  the  world  and  the  will  of  God 
was  the  temptation  which  Jesus  met  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  ministry,  alone  in  the  wilderness, 
and  conquered  in  the  faith  that  he  was  the  Son 
of  God.  He  must  lose  the  world,  and  suffer 
death  at  its  hands,  before  he  could  save  it ;  he 
must  fail  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  or  the  pur- 
pose of  God  in  man  would  fail.  He  saw  that 
the  failure  of  righteousness  in  conflict  with 
wrong  is  really  the  overthrow  of  wrong ;  that 
the  inheritance  of  the  earth  by  the  meek  is  both 
the  natural  law  and  the  manifest  fact  which  the 
unbelief  of  power  does  not  see.  Between  the 
contending  passions  of  an  overturning  indigna- 
tion against  wrong,  and  a  saving  love  for  the 
wronged  and  the  wrong-doer,  his  spirit  seems 
to  have  often  been  troubled  and  torn.  Through 
faith  and  vision,  through  experience  and  suffer- 
ing, he  learned  obedience  to  the  sacrifice  of  ser- 
vice as  the  great  law  of  redemption.  Had  not 
Jesus  learned  and  obeyed  this  law,  his  ideal  of 
the  human  world  become  a  kingdom  of  heaven 
would  have  tormented  him  to  his  own  and 
perhaps  the  world's  destruction.  Trusting  that 
in  committing  himself  to  this  law  he  would 
commit  humanity  thereto,  Jesus  made  the 
matchless  adventure  of  his  life. 


262  BETWEEN  CAESAR   AND  JESUS. 

So,  he  being  what  he  was,  civilization  being 
what  it  was,  the  mission  of  Jesus  forced  him  to 
choose  between  the  sword  and  the  cross  as  the 
weapon  by  which  he  should  undertake  to  deliver 
his  nation,  and  to  establish  God's  royal  reign  in 
the  world.  Others,  like  Mahomet  and  Crom- 
well, have  come  to  this  choice,  and  have  taken 
the  sword.  In  one  way  and  another,  so  long  as 
the  processes  of  redemption  continue,  all  true 
disciples  of  Jesus  will  have  to  make  his  choice 
between  the  failure  of  victory  and  the  victory 
of  failure.  Many  are  called  to  the  cross,  while 
still  few  are  chosen.  Between  the  way  of  the 
sword  and  the  way  of  the  cross,  the  faithful 
witnesses  of  Jesus  may  have  to  choose,  before 
the  law  of  his  sacrifice  is  accepted  as  the  law  of 
society.  No  man  knows  ;  but  in  an  hour  when 
we  think  not  the  Son  of  man  may  come  to  us 
in  such  a  choice. 

Jesus  committed  himself  to  sacrifice  as  love's 
revelation  and  law,  in  the  faith  that  love  is  the 
mightiest  force  in  the  universe,  and  the  ulti- 
mately triumphant  and  organizing  force  in 
human  life.  He  would  put  this  law  to  the  test, 
through  whatever  experiences  and  to  whatever 
end  it  might  bring  him  ;  though  there  should 
come  the  awful  sense,  as  there  did  come  when 
he  cried  from  the  cross  to  God  as  one  who  had 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  263 

forsaken  him,  that  he  had  been  mistaken,  his 
career  a  failure  in  reality.  Sometimes  strongly 
tempted  to  doubt  what  he  did,  struggling  be- 
tween the  cross  and  the  sword,  Jesus  accepted 
the  full  issues  of  the  law  of  sacrifice  to  which 
he  had  committed  himself,  in  order  that  he 
might  reveal  it  to  men  as  the  law  of  their  com- 
mon unity  with  God.  It  was  thus  that,  in  the 
face  of  the  worst  to  be  done  to  him,  he  made 
the  holy  assertion  that  he  had  accomplished  the 
work  given  him  to  do,  and  that  he  had  so  served 
man  as  to  make  his  Father  in  heaven  appear 
glorious  on  the  earth  ;  it  was  thus  that  he  at- 
tached so  high  value  to  his  service,  in  the  face 
of  failure  and  disgrace.  The  eternal  value  of 
his  failure  was  the  revelation  of  God  in  human 
life  in  terms  of  social  sacrifice.  It  was  the  vic- 
tory of  failure. 

The  tragedy  by  which  the  priests  and  rulers 
thought  to  close  the  spiritual  adventure  of  Jesus 
was  not  due,  as  Renan  says  and  Dean  Farrar 
hints,  to  a  baffled  and  overwrought  moral  indig- 
nation ;  it  was  not,  as  Richard  Wagner  said,  in 
one  of  his  early  writings,  "  the  imperfect  utter- 
ance of  that  human  instinct  which  drives  the 
individual  into  revolt  against  a  loveless  whole." 
The  sacrifice  of  Jesus  was  voluntary ;  it  was 
his  deliberately  chosen    way  of   disclosing    to 


264  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

man  what  he  took  to  be  the  whole  law  of  the 
universe,  the  secret  of  all  living  and  growing, 
the  uttermost  depth  of  God's  moral  nature,  so 
that  there  need  be  no  more  mystery  in  the  uni- 
verse to  seeing  eyes.  The  law  of  life  disclosed 
by  his  failure  is  not  a  law  that  is  accidental, 
historical,  or  merely  remedial ;  it  is  the  law  that 
holds  the  stars  in  their  places,  that  pulls  the 
rose  from  the  bud,  that  unfolds  all  life  to  the 
measure  that  it  is  perfect.  Jesus  on  the  cross 
is  the  heart  of  the  Father  laid  bare,  so  that  the 
heart  of  man  may  become  attuned  thereto,  and 
harmony  of  heaven  thus  become  the  established 
order  of  the  world. 

The  revealing  of  God's  law  and  way  of  living, 
in  such  manner  as  to  gain  men  to  that  law  and 
way,  and  so  redeem  them  from  the  independent 
and  lawless  ways  of  life  that  separate  and  de- 
stroy, was  the  work  given  Jesus  to  do  ;  the  work 
which  he  accomplished  by  his  failure.  In  this 
real  and  vital  sense,  the  death  of  Jesus  is  the 
redemption  of  the  world ;  it  is  the  universal 
moral  revelation.  In  theological  terms,  this  is 
called  the  atonement.  But  the  word  largely 
stands  for  the  opposite  of  what  it  means.  Not- 
withstanding the  newer  theological  thinking,  it 
is  still  used  to  define  one  and  another  arrange- 
ment  by  which  God  is  supposed  to  be  satisfied 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  26$ 

with  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  as  a  substitute  for 
a  real  righteousness  in  man.  The  atonement 
which  Jesus  made  and  which  his  apostles  knew, 
the  only  atonement  to  be  made  or  known,  is 
the  uniting  of  man  with  God  in  one  law  of  life. 
And  we  have  not  received  the  atonement  until 
our  wills  have  been  united  with  God's  will  in 
obedience  to  the  law  of  sacrifice  by  which  we 
are  atoned. 

Only  through  the  sacrifice  of  man  does  the 
sacrifice  of  Jesus  effect  itself  redemptively  in 
the  world.  Jesus  was  under  no  greater  obliga- 
tion to  sacrifice  himself  in  bearing  away  the 
sin  of  the  world  than  is  every  one  of  us.  It  is 
the  failure  to  keep  foremost  this  fact  that  con- 
stitutes the  shameful  weakness  of  Christendom 
in  the  face  of  the  great  needs  and  duties  which 
are  calling  the  church  of  our  day  to  a  new 
career  and  a  more  comprehensive  mission. 

But  the  sacrifice  of  the  Christ-life  is  not  a 
mere  renunciation,  as  the  religious  conceptions 
of  the  middle  ages,  as  well  as  of  later  pietism, 
would  make  it  seem.  Nor  is  it  the  negative 
expression  of  life  it  is  conceived  to  be  by  phi- 
losophy. Sacrifice  is  not  so  much  the  laying 
down  as  the  taking  up  of  life.  It  is  not  the 
denial  of  life,  but  the  denial  of  self  as  the  centre 
of  individual  interest  and  effort.     By  sacrifice 


266  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

the  things  of  life  are  not  renounced  to  be  de- 
stroyed ;  they  are  sanctified  and  saved  through 
right  and  social  usage.  Even  the  largest  re- 
nunciation which  Jesus  requires  is  not  the  giv- 
ing up  of  something,  but  the  surrender  and 
consecration  of  something  to  its  natural  and 
holiest  uses.  Sacrifice  is  more  than  renuncia- 
tion ;  it  is  the  divinely  positive  expression  of 
life,  making  life  sacred  through  fitting  and 
ordering  it  for  the  common  good.  True  sacri- 
fice is  co-operation  with  God  in  his  work  and 
ends ;  it  is  the  offering  of  life  to  God  for  his 
service  of  man,  making  life  fruitful  and  joyous 
through  fellowship  with  God  in  his  human  work. 
Through  sacrifice,  life  is  detached  from  self  as 
its  centre  of  interest  and  effort,  and  its  interest 
become  universal,  with  its  energies  a  social  mis- 
sion. Life  is  not  crushed  and  broken  through 
the  sacrifice  for  which  Jesus  calls,  but  is  en- 
riched with  the  fullest  moral  virility,  and  made 
whole  through  the  faith  that  surrenders  it  to 
be  God's  organ  of  human  service.  Our  indi- 
vidual life  is  not  marred,  distorted,  and  thwarted 
by  sacrifice ;  by  sacrifice  life  is  saved,  healed, 
and  glorified.  Sacrifice  saves  and  perfects  life 
through  bringing  it  into  right  relations  ;  through 
fulfilling  its  mission  as  a  social  function  in  the 
one  human  life,  of  which  we  are  all  members. 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  267 

The  sacrificed  life  is  life  becoming  whole,  while 
the  unsacrificed  life  is  a  fragment. 

Now,  so  long  as  the  will  of  the  world  is  not 
at  one  with  the  will  of  God,  the  apostles  of 
every  new  human  initiative  find  their  souls,  as 
well  as  their  mission,  becoming  fields  of  widest 
and  deepest  conflict.  So  long  as  human  con- 
ditions are  not  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  while 
the  things  that  are  an  abomination  in  the  sight 
of  God  are  highly  esteemed  among  men,  no  son 
of  man  can  become  the  organ  through  which 
God  shall  reveal  and  do  his  will,  without  collid- 
ing with  the  will  of  the  existing  order,  and  suf- 
fering some  degree  of  failure  and  disgrace  at 
its  hands.  Hence  the  real  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian evolution  of  man  is  a  perpetual  book  of 
martyrs.  The  largest  redemptive  and  social 
values  have  been  gained  for  human  life  through 
the  individual  failure  inevitable  to  those  who 
seek  to  realize  the  ideal  of  Jesus,  and  who  con- 
form not  to  the  mind  of  organized  selfishness. 
"Christianity,"  says  James  Russell  Lowell,  "has 
never  been  concession,  never  peace  ;  it  is  con- 
tinual aggression ;  one  province  of  wrong  con- 
quered, its  pioneers  are  already  in  the  heart  of 
another.  The  mile-stones  of  its  onward  march 
down  the  ages  have  not  been  monuments  of 
material  power,  but    the    blackened    stakes    of 


268  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

martyrs,  trophies  of  individual  fidelity  to  con- 
viction. For  it  is  the  only  religion  which  is 
superior  to  all  endowment,  to  all  authority, — 
which  has  a  bishopric  and  a  cathedral  wherever 
a  single  human  soul  has  surrendered  itself  to 
God." 

It  is  through  the  sacrifice  and  failure  of  the 
individual  idealist  that  human  emancipation  has 
proceeded  from  the  beginning.  The  prophets 
the  Scriptures  glorify  were  mainly  disgraceful 
failures  in  the  eyes  of  their  times.  Jesus  and 
his  disciples  were  outlawed.  John  the  Bap- 
tist, who  prepared  their  way,  was  beheaded  in 
the  interests  of  official  peace.  Paul,  that  dar- 
ing spiritual  adventurer,  was  loosed  from  prison 
to  be  led  to  his  execution.  St.  Francis  died  of 
a  broken  heart.  Savonarola  was  both  hung 
and  burned,  after  fearful  agonies  of  torture. 
The  Protestant  reformers  were  the  hunted  and 
hated  heretics  of  their  day.  Wesley,  Edwards, 
and  Finney  were  driven  from  their  churches. 
Mazzini  and  his  friends  were  vagabonds  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  Not  long  ago,  Garrison  was 
dragged  through  the  streets  of  Boston  by  a 
commercially  inspired  mob,  and  Lovejoy  met 
his  death  at  the  hands  of  political  retainers. 
Which  of  the  prophets  of  progress,  whose  faith 
we  glorify  with  our  words,  but  whose  truth  we 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  269 

make  the  refuge  of  our  social  cowardice  and  re- 
ligious lies,  was  not  outlawed,  mobbed,  or  slain  ? 

To  eulogize  these  is  easy,  requiring  no  ad- 
venture of  faith  or  risk  of  reputation ;  to  defend 
them  is  always  safe.  "  But  while  we  thus  ape 
our  fathers,"  says  Mazzini,  "  we  forget  that 
their  greatness  consisted  in  the  fact  that  they 
aped  no  one."  To  the  prophets  gone  we  are 
never  so  untrue  as  when  defending  them  against 
the  larger  truth  calling  for  our  own  adventure 
of  faith.  We  truly  honor  the  apostles  and  re- 
formers of  the  past,  and  best'defend  their  name 
and  faith,  by  being  as  ready  as  they  were  for 
failure  and  disgrace.  Have  we  their  faith  to 
put  the  righteous  judgments  of  God  over  against 
the  false  judgments  of  organized  covetousness  ? 
Can  we  bear  the  shame  of  no  reputation,  in 
order  that  we  may  face  the  religious  and  politi- 
cal lies  now  darkening  the  social  mind,  cursing 
our  methods  and  institutions,  and  bring  them 
to  judgment  before  the  truth  of  Jesus  ?  "  One 
must  face  failure,  or  one  is  no  true  missionary," 
says  a  Jewish  reformer.  Our  ability  to  divinely 
fail  for  right's  sake  is  the  real  measure  of  our 
faith.  It  is  the  victory  of  failure  that  over- 
cometh  the  world. 

This  gain  of  human  values  through  failure  is 
not  in   harmonv  with    our    modern    notions  of 


270  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

success,  which  prostitute  every  sacred  human 
power  to  the  gross  and  hideous  lust  of  money, 
and  make  a  religion  of  covetousness.  It  ac- 
cords not  with  the  spirit  of  Anglo-Saxon  enter- 
prise, which  exalts  rights  above  service,  and 
rates  commercial  success  above  all  that  makes 
up  the  real  life.  It  is  not  agreeable  to  that 
patriotism  which  consists  chiefly  in  loyalty  to 
one's  property.  There  is  no  welcome  for  it  in 
the  world  of  business,  the  greatest  corrupter 
of  nations  and  enemy  of  man.  The  respect  of 
the  political  economist  it  has  not,  nor  is  it  in 
keeping  with  the  greedy  maxims  of  Benjamin 
Franklin.  It  is  disturbing  to  the  theologian, 
and  frightful  to  the  ecclesiastic.  It  will  not 
mix  with  the  moral  nostrums  prescribed  by 
pulpit  and  press  as,  "  The  Secret  of  Success," 
or  "  The  Way  to  Succeed  in  Life,"  and  like 
wretched  imposture  upon  the  suffering  world 
by  those  who  are  called  its  teachers.  It  com- 
ports not  with  the  vicious  motives  for  excel- 
lence upheld  by  the  ethical  imbecility  of  much 
of  our  so-called  education.  But  Jesus'  doctrine 
of  life  is  either  the  delusion  of  history,  the  di- 
vine tantalism  of  hopeless  human  suffering,  or 
our  ruling  standards  of  success  are  worse  than 
pagan  ;  they  are  devilish,  and  the  destroyers  of 
life.     The    efforts    of   the    church  to  reconcile 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  27 1 

the  commercial  morals  of  modern  industrialism 
with  the  revelation  of  social  law  and  life  in 
Christ,  is  treason  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
the  worst  apostasy  of  the  church  ;  yea,  it  is  a 
chopping  down  of  the  cross,  and  a  setting  up 
of  the  throne  of  mammon  in  its  place. 

Our  destructive  maxims  of  success  all  pro- 
ceed from  the  doctrine,  in  some  form  or  other, 
that  personal  existence  is  the  chief  end  of  life 
and  its  energy.  They  who  thus  teach  build 
life  on  a  lie.  Not  the  preservation  of  personal 
existence,  but  the  increase  of  the  power  to  love, 
is  the  first  law  of  man's  nature.  "  We  must," 
says  Hegel,  "  banish  from  our  minds  the  preju- 
dice in  favor  of  duration,  as  if  it  had  any 
advantage  as  compared  with  transience  :  the 
imperishable  mountains  are  not  superior  to  the 
quickly  dismantled  rose  exhaling  its  life  in 
fragrance."  Life  consists  not  in  duration  of 
years,  any  more  than  it  consists  in  the  abun- 
dance of  the  things  one  hath,  but  in  the  quality 
of  service.  All  life  becomes  as  great,  in  the 
end,  as  the  idea  and  the  affections  in  which  it 
invests  itself  ;  and  these  have  nothing  to  do 
with  place  or  length  of  days.  Life  is  as  valu- 
able and  immortal  as  the  things  for  which'  it 
sacrifices  itself ;  and  the  value  of  the  sacrifice 
depends  on  the  purity  of  the  victim. 


272  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

True,  we  must  "  get  a  living  ; "  we  must  work 
for  our  bread  ;  but  bread  is  not  the  end  of  work, 
and  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone.  The  end 
of  work  is  distributive  justice,  social  character, 
the  divine  individuality  of  the  sons  of  man  ; 
these  are  the  work  of  God  in  human  life.  Our 
first  and  fundamental  duty  is  to  seek  in  what 
manner  and  by  what  work  we  can  best  fulfil  the 
righteousness  of  Christ  in  the  life  of  the  world. 
Our  life  has  but  one  meaning,  in  fact ;  and  that 
is  the  individual  and  collective  seeking  of  the 
highest  knowable  right,  in  the  faith  that  this 
universe  is  so  principled  and  organized  that 
only  right  can  in  the  end  bring  food  to  the  pro- 
ducer, and  abundance  to  the  working  children 
of  men.  Our  best  service  to  God  or  our  na- 
tion, our  best  gift  to  our  family,  is  to  illustrate 
in  our  life  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  who  is  the 
righteousness  of    God    made   manifest  for  the 

o 

practice  of  men.  He  that  preserves  his  life 
wastes  it,  while  he  that  wastes  his  life  in  lov- 
ing sacrifice  finds  it  eternally.  "Remember," 
says  Thomas  Hardy,  "  that  the  best  and  great- 
est among  mankind  are  those  who  do  them- 
selves no  worldly  good.  Every  successful  man 
is  more  or  less  a  selfish  man.  The  devoted 
fail." 

Never  was  the  choice  between  the  sword  and 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  273 

the  cross,  between  the  failure  of  victory  and 
the  victory  of  failure,  more  pressing  than  now. 
We  stand  near  the  social  crisis  of  the  world. 
The  existing  order  has  already  served  overtime. 
It  is  now  senseless,  and  growing  worse.  To 
spend  and  be  spent  in  mending  it,  is  to  waste 
one's  life,  and  to  involve  the  common  life  in 
still  deeper  and  wider  complications.  Too  long 
already  have  we  been  laying  the  axe  at  the 
leaves  and  branches  of  the  tree  of  economic 
evil ;  the  axe  must  now  be  laid  at  the  roots. 
The  present  order  cannot  be  mended  ;  it  can 
only  give  birth  to  the  new  order,  the  regenerate 
civilization.  "The  gathering  blackness  of  the 
frown  of  God,"  as  the  poet  Watson  calls  it, 
warns  us  to  repent  quickly. 

Revolution  of  some  sort  is  not  far  off.  The 
social  change  will  bring  forth  either  the  revolu- 
tion of  love,  or  the  tragedy  and  woe  of  a  leader- 
ship inspired  by  a  love  of  revolution.  Either  a 
revival  of  love,  an  outpouring  of  love  through 
the  messianic  fellowship  of  some  vast  social 
sacrifice,  or  a  universal  French  Revolution  will 
come.  Either  a  spiritual  movement,  producing 
a  revival  such  as  the  prophets  dimly  or  never 
dreamed  of,  or  blood  such  as  never  flowed  will 
remit  the  sins  of  the  existing  order.  For  a 
religious  revival,  springing  from  some  vast  and 


274  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

wondrous  social  love,  Christendom  waits  in  fear, 
anxiety,  and  expectancy. 

If  the  revival  comes,  bringing  in  the  revolu- 
tion of  love,  it  will  have  to  be  initiated  through 
the  sacrifice  of  those  who  have  settled  their 
accounts  with  the  world,  who  value  not  their 
personal  existence,  who  love  their  brethren  and 
not  themselves,  who  can  live  as  men  who  are 
already  dead.  Before  civilization  experiences 
its  redemption,  the  Son  of  man  will  have  to  be 
somehow  lifted  up  in  offered  lives.  We  need 
not  expect  that  we,  in  the  midst  of  this  ex- 
hausted yet  sovereign  industrialism,  can  accord 
with  social  custom  and  religious  opinion,  and  at 
the  same  time  obey  Jesus,  any  more  than  the 
disciples  who  followed  him  through  his  conflict 
with  Jewish  religion,  and  then  went  abroad  as 
his  witnesses  and  martyrs  in  the  Roman  civili- 
zation. Sooner  or  later  they  who  stand  for  the 
social  order  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  who  believe 
and  teach,  in  work  and  word,  that  the  facts  and 
forces  of  Jesus'  life  are  wise  and  strong  for  the 
perfect  organization  of  society,  will  meet  the 
existing  order  of  things  in  clearly  denned  lines 
of  conflict.  The  Pilates  of  monopoly  have  al- 
ready made  friends  with  the  Herods  of  the 
state,  and  the  high  priests  of  the  church  are 
blessing  their  union.     It  is  no  longer  best  to 


THE    VICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  27$ 

evade  or  conceal  the  divine  inevitable  :  there 
may  have  to  be  some  dying  done  before  our 
social  wrongs  are  thoroughly  righted. 

The  supreme  need  of  the  social  crisis  is  that 
of  strong  men  willing  to  fail,  that  they  may 
prove  the  justice  of  love,  and  the  wisdom  of 
love's  sacrifice.  Above  all  else,  society  needs 
deliverance  from  the  impracticability  of  the 
practical  man,  from  the  failure  of  his  successes. 
A  single  generation  of  Christians,  yea,  a  single 
generation  of  preachers  and  teachers,  great 
enough  to  fail,  could  regenerate  the  world  !  If 
the  religious  leaders  of  our  day  would  be  willing 
to  suffer  the  loss  of  all  things,  and  become  sin 
that  civilization  through  them  might  be  made 
the  righteousness  of  God,  they  could  bring  in 
the  thousand  years  of  peace.  They  would  not 
drink  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine  until  they  could 
drink  it  new  in  the  Father's  kingdom  ;  they 
would  not  enjoy  the  fruits  of  the  earth  until 
they  could  enjoy  them  as  sharers  with  all  human 
life,  redeemed  to  the  holy  society.  As  the 
Father  sent  Jesus,  so  sends  he  each  of  us,  to  bear 
away  the  sins  of  the  world,  and  become  com- 
pletest  worldly  failures,  that  the  social  order  of 
his  kingdom  may  appear  amidst  the  wrecks  of 
organized  selfishness. 

And   yet  I    could    not    close    this   course  of 


276  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

lectures  without  saying  that  I  truly  have  a 
boundless  hope  that  the  Christ  may  come  into 
human  life,  this  time,  without  being  put  to 
shame  at  the  hands  of  man.  There  are  mo- 
ments when  I  seem  to  see  the  revolution  of  love 
as  a  nearing  reality,  bringing  forth  the  new 
birth  of  nations  in  a  day.  The  full  power  of 
incarnate  love  has  never  yet  been  tried,  save  in 
Jesus.  When  it  is  finally  tried,  and  we  in  any 
considerable  measure  learn  how  to  love,  prob- 
lems may  vanish  from  progress,  and  a  thousand 
years  of  yesterday  be  achieved  in  a  moment  of 
the  concord  of  to-morrow.  As  the  legion  of 
demons  left  the  Gadarene,  when  confronted 
with  the  full  vitality  of  the  love  of  Jesus,  so 
when  there  are  a  sufficient  number  messianic 
enough  to  commit  themselves  to  the  social 
power  and  wisdom  of  love,  with  all  the  spiritual 
adventure  and  divine  risk  involved,  what  legion 
of  demons  they  may  cast  out  no  prophet  can 
tell.  In  even  the  most  disastrous  failure,  they 
would  stir  the  world's  blood  to  the  purer  life  of 
a  holy  and  undying  discontent,  and  thus  accom- 
plish the  work  given  them  to  do.  But  the  fund 
of  love,  the  spiritual  reserve,  the  distrust  of 
selfish  motive  and  action,  the  deeds  that  are 
better  than  our  creeds,  all  bulk  so  large  that  it 
may  be  that  the  Son  of  man  will  now  at  last  be 


THE    J'ICTORY  OF  FAILURE.  2  J  J 

welcomed  by  his  own.  It  may  be  that  the  truth 
which  we  need  for  to-day  and  to-morrow  will  find 
a  prepared  highway  of  love  upon  which  to  travel 
to.  victory  and  freedom. 

The  chasm  which  the  social  crisis  has  opened 
between  classes,  right  here  in  our  American 
life,  had  no  right  to  be.  Men,  you  are  brothers  ; 
in  your  heart  of  hearts  you  know  it.  In  your 
better  moments,  you  know  that  the  feeling  of 
manly  comrade-love  you  have  for  your  fellows 
brings  you  more  of  joy,  more  of  all  that  makes 
life  worth  while,  than  all  the  possessions  of  the 
earth.  This  affection  and  brotherhood  of  sym- 
pathy are  your  inheritance  from  the  ages  of 
sacrifice,  bloodshed,  and  heartache ;  they  are 
your  birthright.  You  cannot,  men,  you  will 
not,  let  strife  over  mere  things,  over  pieces  of 
iron  and  paper  and  gold,  array  you  against  each 
other,  and  steal  your  birthright  away.  You  are 
not  enemies  ;  you  are  not  classes  ;  you  are  not 
the  guardians  of  interests ;  you  are  friends, 
comrades,  and  lovers  one  of  another.  Your  fears 
about  your  rights  are  unmanly  and  unworthy ; 
your  interests  are  superstitions  ;  your  gains  are 
delusions  ;  your  classes  make  you  ashamed,  for 
you  know  that  they  are  not  noble.  Do  not  suffer 
things  and  prejudices  to  rob  you  of  your  fellow- 
ship, for  that  is  your  life.     Rise  to  the  noblest 


278  BETWEEN  CAESAR  AND  JESUS. 

that  is  in  you,  and  dare  to  trust  it.  Act  as  men 
too  strong  to  be  made  the  tools  of  interests  and 
things,  men  too  brave  to  become  the  slaves  of 
fear  and  prejudice.  And  in  the  conquest  of 
your  fears,  you  will  conquer  yourself ;  and  the 
God  in  you  will  conquer  the  world  for  love  and 
liberty. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last 
date  stamped  below 


°*C  \  1 1948 
JAN  f*   J*lV7S 


ftEC'D  MLD 


too**i  * 


t9T0      M 

181970 


G 


Sl     Jun23 


4UW 


R% 


BEC'D 
URL 

MAY  2  2  973 


1973 


5m-2,'31 


.-INlA 


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